{"id":150,"date":"2009-05-18T04:28:51","date_gmt":"2009-05-18T12:28:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/garden\/?p=150"},"modified":"2015-11-24T07:32:59","modified_gmt":"2015-11-24T15:32:59","slug":"tree-peonies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/tree-peonies\/","title":{"rendered":"Tree Peonies"},"content":{"rendered":"

TREE PEONIES
\n<\/font><\/font><\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Somehow I ended up with four tree peonies.\u00a0 I only paid for one of them, which was supposed to be yellow and turned out to have bright cerise flowers.\u00a0 The others came to me as gifts from a fellow gardener who was moving and couldn’t take his tree peonies with him.\u00a0 I have always had a soft spot for strays. \u00a0<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Most people know and love “regular”\u009d herbaceous peonies or Paeonia lactiflora, which emerge each spring with reddish new growth and eventually reach a height of about three feet.\u00a0 On some varieties, the lush, showy flowers feature a single row of petals and look almost like big poppies; others sport fat fluffy flowerheads with scores of soft petals.\u00a0 The colors range from pure white, thorough a spectrum of creams, pinks, corals, roses and bright reds.\u00a0 Some varieties are fragrant and all make good cut flowers, as long as you shake off the ants that are drawn to the sticky liquid exuded by the buds.\u00a0 <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I have several herbaceous peonies and would grow more if I could only annex my neighbor’s property.\u00a0 She has never been amenable to this idea, so either I have to pull out a few rosebushes or content myself with my existing tree peonies.\u00a0 <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Of course I could also uproot one of the tree peonies, but–orphans that most of them are–I have grown rather attached to them.\u00a0 Tree peonies or Paeonia suffruticosa are not trees, but woody shrubs.\u00a0 Unlike their herbaceous relatives, they do not die back in the summer, but hold on to their impressive green, deeply-dissected leaves until late fall, when they finally discard them for winter.\u00a0 The flowers are sumptuous and beautiful, similar to those of herbaceous peonies, but often with a more open appearance that reveals handsome centers full of golden stamens.\u00a0 The flower colors include yellow, and I have always wanted a yellow-flowered plant.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Fate has not been kind to me on that score.\u00a0 I ordered and paid for a yellow variety six years ago and received a healthy plant from the nursery.\u00a0 Tree peonies require patience and often don’t bloom the first or second year after you receive them.\u00a0 In my case that meant that by the time the first cerise flowers appeared on the plant, I had long since thrown out the receipt for the yellow-flowered variety that I really wanted.\u00a0 Besides, it seemed sinful to rip out a plant that had done nicely for twenty-flour months, and the cerise flowers were pretty, though they smelled terrible.\u00a0 Four years later, the cerise tree peony is beginning to reach maturity.\u00a0 This year it had about thirty gorgeous, foul-smelling blossoms.\u00a0 I stood upwind from the plant and admired them extravagantly.\u00a0 When neighbors stopped to gaze at my impressive tree peony, I smiled and accepted their compliments.\u00a0 Serendipity is a valuable thing in the garden, and it is better not to ask “why”\u009d about some things.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The other three tree peonies have been in the garden for two and a half years now.\u00a0 Last year each of them produced a single blossom.\u00a0 The gardener who gave them to me said that one of them might be yellow, so I had high hopes.\u00a0 He had originally bought four plants, but when it came time to dig them up, we could only find three.\u00a0 The yellow one evidently perished.\u00a0 One of my three strays has white flowers, another has pale pink blooms and a third sports flowers of darker pink.\u00a0 This year each produced two blossoms.\u00a0 Tree peonies are notoriously temperamental about being transplanted and the three strays sulked for quite awhile.\u00a0 I expect that over the next few years they will grow into healthy, mature specimens.\u00a0 They may not be yellow, but life has its little compensations–they don’t smell nearly as bad as their cerise-flowered cousin.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Even though your neighbors probably don’t have tree peonies, I recommend that you try one.\u00a0 Aside from getting the sulks over being transplanted, they are quite easy to grow.\u00a0 They like a sunny well drained site, but may require afternoon shade, depending on how far south you live.\u00a0 Mine have had nothing other than routine weeding and mulching since they arrived.\u00a0 A few varieties reputedly have an attractive fragrance. \u00a0<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Native to China and cultivated for centuries in Japan, tree peonies are celebrated for their glorious colors.\u00a0 The petals look like silk.\u00a0 One of my favorite varieties, which I will acquire right after I finally get the yellow-flowered object of my desire, is an heirloom variety called Joseph Rock.\u00a0 It has white petals with darkest purple “flares”\u009d or elongated center markings.\u00a0 It is one of the most distinctive flowers I have ever seen.\u00a0 <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Good tree peonies–mature plants with strong root systems–are relatively expensive because nurseries have to care for them for several years before they are ready for sale.\u00a0 Expect to pay thirty to fifty dollars for a good specimen and much more for new or rare varieties.\u00a0 Some vendors will offer younger plants for less money and older ones for a higher price.\u00a0 For a good selection of both herbaceous and tree peonies, try Klehm’s Song Sparrow Farm and Nursery, 13101 East Rye Road, Avalon, WI 53505, (800) 553-3715, <\/font><\/font>www.songsparrow.com<\/font><\/a>.\u00a0 Free catalog.\u00a0 Also try Cricket Hill Garden, 670 Walnut Hill Road, Thomaston, CT 06787, (860) 283-1042, <\/font>www.treepeony.com<\/font><\/a>.\u00a0 Free brochure.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TREE PEONIES \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Somehow I ended up with four tree peonies.\u00a0 I only paid for one of them, which was supposed to be yellow and turned out to have bright cerise flowers.\u00a0 The others came to me as gifts from a fellow gardener who was moving and couldn’t take his tree peonies with him.\u00a0 I … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-interest","category-spring"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1635,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150\/revisions\/1635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}