A Sudden Outburst of Sun-- and Peonies

The cold and grey of most of May was good for one thing: watching the Giro d'Italia (Tour of Italy) bike race on tv. The Spaniard Contador, after whose exploits I've named a peony, was in a fine fettle, lit up the race a few times, and won the thing. Great style to watch on the bike, and explosive uphill. Motivating.

Finally things warmed up here, outside, although remaining cloudy. Then 2 days of sun and it was suddenly almost hard to hear anything except peonies popping.

I had decided to try my darndest to prevent the bees from cross-pollinating the darker-flowered species into the lighter ones. This has meant clipping the buds of many plants while they are well-coloured but not quite open. But what to do with them all? Well, a couple of floating cut-flower projects have evolved. 6 buds of P mascula filled a large glass mixing bowl once all opened, but I'd have needed over a dozen of them. So some clean plastic planting trays sufficed, or will eventually, for the rest, holding about 40 buds each (now working on the third). In addition to mascula, there are a lot of P caucasica and P kesrouanensis, some P ruprechtiana (all 3 of those of the mascula clan and very similar), and a few early P veitchii and P officinalis.













So now the yellows and whites are free to be bee'd without muddying their colours, if not exactly keeping their gene pools clean (I'll do some hand-pollinating with a paintbrush to help that aspect). But wait, I also really need seed of P triternata, so there is the slight chance of some pink after all. Oh well. And then there's the bright red P tenuifolia in bloom in one location: that colour is welcome to mix with the yellows if it wants!

Blogger refuses to insert photos in the order I send them, and moving them around has crashed the blog more than once, so the following are not in my preferred order; but what the heck.

White form of P steveniana, flower and plant. That's about as open as the flowers of this species get.











A very pale form of P mlokosewitschii, which started to open yesterday. There is a subtle blush of pink at the base of the petals. I call this the "Moonlight form". This plant is one year out of the pot, where it had 2 stems last year.

P mlokosewitschii proper, the Golden Peony.

P steveniana proper, a bit paler than mlokosewitschii and a bit darker than P tomentosa (which is done now). And a grouping of 3 plants.

And just to prove that I'm not totally against the "pinks" this year, a nice dark-flowered form of P caucasica.

More peonies of course

Paeonia tenuifolia ssp lithophila, a dwarf form of Fern-leaf Peony; today the sun was out so the flowers opened fully.



Same plant but on a cloudy day; this is meant just to give an idea of plant form. Windy and rainy weather a few days ago have twisted the stems a bit, and with the leafs fully out on the overhanging tree branches these are somewhat more shaded than they would like.
Flower of a seedling of tenuifolia proper, seed from a J Halda collection near Vidin, Bulgaria.



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Paeonia mlokosewitschii, the Golden Peony, opened today in the datum beds although it has been open for a few days already in another bed. This is the palest yellow any of my mloko's have shown as, and is growing in the woodland bed.

From the same seed lot and in the datum bed, a couple of apparent hybrids of mloko. The buds were photographed yesterday, and the opening flower this morning.

I wrote "apparent hybrids" because to the best of my knowledge plants from wild-collected seed do not show these shades of colour, but they are not uncommon in plants grown from garden-origin seed, where cross-pollination with other species is possible.

Although unusual (but perhaps not uncommon among mloko hybrids) and interesting the colour is not exactly the cleanest and I was getting myself set to sell this plant off this year. But the fragrance!! oh my, has convinced me to keep it around: a strong scent of allspice and orange. Strange, didn't notice any scent to it last year.
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This just opened, Paeonia officinalis ssp villosa. Apothecarie's Peony. Similar in flower to P mollis, but taller and with different foliage and seed shape and etc.


And here a closeup of the flower of the Caucasus Peony, P. caucasica.




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Final pic today, the carpels of P steveniana just after the rest of the flower parts have been shed. Still an interesting show with the red pistols... Totally hairless, which is where the synonym P wittmaniana forma nudicarpa came from. If I'd been thinking I would have a pic of P. tomentosa's woolly carpels for comparison.

A few late noses and shoots, and another first flower

Paeonia humilis, also classified as a dwarf subspecies humilis of the Apothecarie's Peony Paeonia officinalis, is just coming up in the display bed next to the Fern-leaf peony. But it was just transplanted here last fall from the open field, so it may normally be earlier.

And also in the display, a.k.a. datum, beds the Siberian Paeonia obovata is just now starting to shoot. It looks decidedly weird surrounded by 2-ft tall peonies in full leaf and ready to flower! The shoot on the right already has a small flower bud sitting on it.
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Meanwhile beside P. mascula the somewhat similar Paeonia ruprechtiana has opened today.

This species ranges from SE Europe to the Caucasus. My plants are from seed reportedly (3rd hand) wild collected in the SW of the Republic of Georgia (Not Georgia USA, but over in the Caucasus region.) Its' natural environment is woodlands and mountainsides in the subalpine zone and lower. Here it is equally vigorous in part shade as in my woods; I don't have any in the open field.

I'm using the name on the label the seed arrived with. Distinctions between some of these very similar species and subsp are often beyond my ability effectively to apply the botanical descriptions of the books to the actual plant sitting in front of me.

A shorty- Paeonia humilis

A real cutie for the rock garden or anywhere that a dwarf peony will fit, Paeonia humilis grows only 10-16 inches tall. It's a tidy plant with soft-textured well-divided foliage and a cheery bright flower, which has a range of colours from shades of pink and rose into red.

First date of bloom here 30 May this year, but I have it growing only in the open field. All other first-bloom dates have been in the part-shade bed.

This species is native to the SW of Europe, in France, Spain and Portugal. Adapatable to a fairly wide range of conditions from rocky slopes to open woods.

Some botanists classify this plant as Paeonia officinalis subsp humilis and like many peonies it has a long string of other synonyms by which it may be listed.

Keeping myself confused- Paeonia officinalis

This one has the common name Apothecarie's Peony due to its use in herbal medicine from ancient times. It is wide-ranging and variable in leaf and flower and probably moved into some of what is now considered its native range with Rome's legions of occupation. It grows in Portugal through to southern France, Switzerland, Hungary and into Romania, an south into the Balkans and Italy.

Being variable, it exists in several subspecies which may or may not be considered separate species by some botanists, either currently or formerly. Paeonia officinalis is quite hardy (USDA zone 3) and is probably the most commonly grown species in North America after the many cultivars of the Chinese Peony, Paeonia lactiflora, which is the common garden peony. I have somewhat neglected P. officinalis in my seed searches and so don't have many reliably-named plants of the various subspecies, and not too many plants of it, period.

The first photo was of a generic P. officinalis; the next 2 are of the subspecies P. officinalis subsp villosa (subject to the vaguaries of seed sources) and the final 4 are of P. officinalis subsp banatica. The leafs of one of them are mottled in paler shades of greyish-green, which I suspect is from some localized soil condition and doubt it will persist beyond this year.

villosa








banatica

First blooms opened on P. officinalis on 29 May here this year. Flower colour is supposed to range into red, although I'm not seeing anything really red on my plants yet. Quiet flowers for the most part, and although I tend to photograph them on first opening, while they are still almost globe-shaped, they do open out fully flat. Seed pods are not as attractive as with the peonies of the Caucasus, but yet still interesting.

This species seems more suited to a sunny location here, but although less vigorous in the woodland bed is still an adequate doer there.