Finally, Hong’s third volume of ‘Peonies of the world’ has been published. We have some reading to do… It raises P. veitchii from subspecies to species rank and divides all species into seven groups. There’s obviously more in it as well, but we’ve only just received it an hour ago.

And to end the season here are some images of my favorite pink one: The Fawn.

Peony season is over here. Here are some images of Old Faithful. An excellent dark red late flowering hybrid. One of the very best thanks to its’ strong stems and other good qualities. It does fade somewhat as you can see from the images below. IMHO it is at its’ best when just open and when placed in a vase the fading goes much more slowly.

Just received a scam e-mail message purporting to be from this site, which it isn’t. If you receive something like this, just ignore it. If it feels dubious, it probably is…

Mr Sandman. A beige single, fading towards white. Large buds and flowers. Healthy plant with good foliage, stems good enough to hold the flowers upright. Rather late flowering for a single. Hybridized by Chris Laning, unregistered.

Féerie. Not only a peony perfume, but also a variety itself. Bred by French hybridizer Cayeux, introduced in the nineties. Unregistered it seems, although a seedling of it is, named Coral Silvertone. Clearly P. peregrina is involved here. It’s very tall, has good foliage and outstanding stems. Very sturdy and firmly remaining upright. Flower size…Read More

Pastelegance. Perfectly formed large flower and a very attractive color. Alas the plant habit is far from outstanding.

Age of Gold. One of the early Lutea-hybrids. A shrubby peony (or ‘tree’ peony if you like to exaggerate a little). Pretty flowers and color but the flowers are sideways hanging (the so-called ‘Lutea-hook’) and sometimes hidden in the foliage. Fragrance is very strong and, well, quite addictive.

Dipple Gowt. From Nilitz x P. obovata ssp willmottiae. There aren’t that many hybrids with willmottiae around. Saunders had his Silver Dawn which resulted, some generations further down the line, into Lois’ Choice and Sunny Girl. Dipple Gowt was bred by Fawkner more recently, a sibling of Bhutan and some others. It has a pale greenish yellow…Read More

Ballerina. Our favorite A.P. Saunders introduction. From the cross P. wittmanniana x P. lactiflora ‘Lady Alexandra Duff’. Saunders didn’t have too many doubles, definitely not in the first generation of his crosses. This is one of the very few exceptions and it really is an excellent one. Pale yellow flowering early in the season. Large flowers…Read More

Nelda’s Joy. A good one. Medium height. Upright stems, buds well closed and round.

We’ve been having crap weather for several weeks now. Still waiting for Corals and others to start blooming. Some varieties take the harsh winds, many rain showers and cold temperatures better than others. Vanilla Schnapps is one that really detests this: many dried up buds, open buds, damaged stems and so on. It really needs a sheltered position.…Read More

A few more days and the bulk of the standard hybrid cultivars will start flowering. Red Charm, Coral Charm, Command Performance, Cytherea shall Bloom the following week. We, and many others, are hybridizing for early varieties. As can be seen from the plants now flowering we’re advancing well.

Clearstream. Somewhat beige fading to white. Great plant habit, large buds, early. Comes from Claire de Lune x Estria. This plant and its’ father by hybridizer Thierry Rat. The mother Claire de Lune is from P. lactiflora x P. mlokosewitchii, which was a very difficult cross.

Paeonia mlokosewitchii, or at least some garden hybrid of it, I’m unsure whether this corresponds to the wild species. The leaflets are divided till 13 sometimes (5-3-5), which is unlike the species description of 9 (3-3-3). I have better yellows than this, but without doubt mlokosewitchii features in the ancestry of all of them.

Nancy, its’ third year. Impressive I’d say.

pollen of a Chinese lactiflora cultivar ‘xianhefen’ and intersectional peony Hillary.
xianhefen’s pollens are plump and even,while most pollens of Hillary are shriveled with a few normal pollen. I tried to culture them，but neither germinated.

A sport of ‘Bartzella’,no flare, pure lemon yellow. found in 2019 May.

There’s no denying that The American Peony Society is doing great work currently. Despite its’ geographic denomination, it is recommended for every peony enthusiast worldwide to become a member. If you choose a digital subscription only, it’s quite cheap as well. Their latest publication of their Bulletin features a long article by Don Smith which…Read More

Paeonia emodi (Greenhouse grown).

Early Caucasian Hybrid finally flowering. All other ones are still far behind.

It has been a long time with colder-than-average temperatures. Night times usually freezing, day times between 5-10°C. This results in plants not actively growing. Our peony broker sent out a newsletter today and in this mentions a lot of problems due to this. The main issue being young stems that fall over due to botrytis at ground level. That…Read More

First flower of the season outside and it’s only March 26th. P. kesrouanensis. Strong agreeable fragrance. The foliage develops further after flowering. Flowering times are usually compared to Red Charm. That one normally flowers May 10-15 here. So the offset is approximately 45 days earlier. I don’t have any other peony flowering this early

‘Early Caucasian Hybrid’ as it now stands growing outside.

In the hoophouses, peonies are growing fine. The difference between the gibberellin treated plants and untreated ones can be clearly seen this year. Only Mme Claude Tain growing in this one.

The early peonies are coming out of the soil by now. Below is a current image of a very early hybrid which I intend to register with the American Peony Society (APS) this year. To do that, one must give a good description of the plant, so I’ll be taking a lot of pictures of this one. It’s grown from seed (as are (nearly) all new peony varieties of…Read More

I’ve ordered peony seeds many times before, but how I’ve received P. broteri from Portugal by Sementes Vivas is truly making me happy 😀