Variants, and something cute

Paeonia peregrina, usually deep red but varying towards salmon/coral in some populations in the wild. This is the first non-red flower that has shown itself here. Quite a standout.

This cute little thing is Arisarum proboscoides, called the Mouse Tail Plant. Its foliage is the arrowhead shaped stuff in the next photo down. The genus name celebrates the similarities of the flower with the Arisaemae (jack-in-the-pulpits and cobra lilies) and of the growth habit with the Asarums (hardy gingers); one really has to dig through the foliage to find the flowers.

I would have taken the piece of plastic out of there before taking the picture, but honestly didn't see it!!

Okay, back to peonies. The following 3 photos show variation of flower colour between plants from a single open-pollinated seedlot (collected here) of Paeonia veitchii (Veitch's Peony)
The darkest is really somewhat redder than the photo shows, but there is something about the way the camera catches the light which overemphasizes the blue tint. (and it has nothing to do with blue sky, because there was none that day or most other days since the start of May!!)
The mid-pink is most common, here.

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.

From the Arctic circle to Northern China

A pair of closely related species which have been open for up to 5 days in various locations (and not yet at all in others) opened today in the datum bed.

The first is Paeonia anomala (this is subsp intermedia which has wider leaf segments), the Anomalous Peony, probably the most cold-hardy of the species as it's natural range runs the entire length of the Ural mountains of Siberia and it has been naturalized into the Kola Penninsula since about the end of the 1800's. Easy to grow in normal garden conditions and soils, it is adaptable from full sun to the dappled shade of woodland gardens in mixed cover. Indeed its natural environment is in forests and scrub. The species has some variability in the fineness of the leaf segments, and in the colour of the flowers (there is a white-flowered form which I am anxiously awaiting the flowering of); the form most often seen in book photos is narrowly segmented and has dark magenta flowers.

Second is Paeonia veitchii, Veitch's Peony, of late classified as a subspecies of anomala by some Chinese botanists. It has some overlap with the southern end of the range of anomala and extends further south. Flower colour is variable, most of mine are either slightly paler pink than this plant or a darker pink, but from later seed batches I have been getting plants ranging to dark red. And of course there is a white form which I try to keep the bees from diluting. Leaf variations include shiny smooth leafs to "matte finishes" and veining with an "etched in" appearance. The plant in the photo is from seed from a compact form, but the plant seems about full size in garden conditions.

Veitchii is one of the few species which has more than one flower bud per stem (it has a terminal bud and 1 to 3 pairs of side-buds). Those who seek large flowers can direct more growth energy to the terminal bud by early removal of the sidebuds, whereas those who leave the sidebuds on get to enjoy a succession of smaller flowers over a couple of weeks, extending the bloom period of the plant. This species is equally easy and adaptable as anomala.

These 2 (or 1 if you prefer) were the first species for which I obtained seed and had success with. They used to be my earliest peonies to flower... How naive I was, then. (okay, still am but that's a different story)

Peonies Progress (1)

Veitch's Peony, Paeonia veitchii, finally showing, slightly more advanced in some locations than in others. The first pic shows the leafs starting to deploy, the second shows them just emerged.







Here, the Anomalous Peony, Paeonia anomala, just showing up; no obvious difference from veitchii at this stage. This species used to be my earliest to show up, but the warmer winters this decade have for some reason retarded its emergence. And of course I now grow a lot more species than I used to so I don't know if it would still be earliest following a colder drier winter.

The next 2 pics are of the Golden Peony, Paeonia mlokosewitschii. The first with the notable purple colouration to the leafs and the glaucous tint, is my original plant, purchased as a root division. The second with the greener foliage, is a seed-grown plant (seed bought from Chiltern's of the UK). Other seed-grown plants from different sources show leaf colouration between these two.

Noses, Shoots, and Deploying Leafs (part 5)

This is the last part of this series of pics from 8 May. Whew.

Fern-leaf Peony, Paeonia tenuifolia, at home in a grass swarm. Not planned; the grass came later (as it is tending to do in all my beds. Why oh why do we insist/persist in using creeping grasses in lawns?! (why do we have lawns at all?)

And here, probably a hybrid of tenuifolia, or maybe just a variation on the species. Whichever, it's also enjoying the grass. And while writing that, it has just occured to me that the grass may help to moderate soil moisture in winter here and thus break the plants out of their habit of decline after wet mild winters. Hmmm, time will tell.

Pre-2000 we used to have cold winters with dry snow; back then Paeonia anomala or the Anomalous Peony used to be way ahead of the garden peonies and the other species I was growing back then (which were only a few, and none of the very early ones). These days it choses to sleep in and in fact is not showing yet in most locations around the property. Note the sections of crown and roots sitting proud of the soil. Several plants of this species have adopted the bareback approach to life almost since they were first planted about 12 years ago. I don't bother covering them up.

And finally showing up today, the noses of the traditional Chinese Peony, Paeonia lactiflora, forebear of most of the garden peonies. More slender than any (?) others, and redder. At last something familiar-looking to many! This plant is grown from seed collected in the wilds of Mongolia or northern China (again, the intrepid Halda).

Missing in action (well, inaction really!) is Veitch's Peony Paeonia veitchii, and several tree peony species. They're just not starting yet.

A brief note to those who check this site daily, I have made 3 postings on the evening of 10 May, all dated 8 May: parts 3-5 of this theme. (the reason for messing with the dates is because of the date of the photos)

A few more Peony seed carpels

Yes, I'm still here off and on between bike rides... One of the pleasures of the countryside at this time of year is the marvelous scent of massed flowers of the biennial Queen Anne's Lace (Wild Carrot) where it has populated ditches or abondoned fields.
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Carpels and the shiny jet-black seed of Paeonia anomala var intermedia. The seed is weakly attached and can be knocked to the ground by a heavy rain; this is not the case with most species.


Carpels and seed of Paeonia veitchii. The seeds are distinctly blueish when fresh but will often change to black when dried for a few months.

More Peony Seedpods- Carpels

For an introductory discussion of these things, see my weblog entry of July 21.
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Today's photos are of the Asian species I have.

Carpels of Paeonia anomala subsp intermedia

Carpels of Paeonia veitchii.






Carpels of Paeonia obovata. Very distinctive.





Carpels of Paeonia lactiflora (plants from wild-collected seed) These are smaller because they are less weeks from flowering.

The hardiest- Paeonia anomala

Paeonia anomala is the widest-ranging species geographically, and probably the hardiest. It's natural range is through the Ural mountains of Russia from the Arctic Circle into Mongolia and northern China and into other parts of Siberia and it has naturalized in Finland. It grows in forest clearings and scrub. It is very closely related to P veitchii, and indeed some botanists consider veitchii to be a subspecies of P anomala. The main differences to the gardener are that anomala has only one flower per stem (usually), the flowers have more of a satiny texture, and veitchii is more nodding (ie flowers facing horizontalish rather than more skywards). Also anomala is probably more cold-hardy, depending on where in its range it originated.

I haven't seen the same sort of flower colour variability in my anomala as in my veitchii, but it is there. Foliage also varies widely in the narrowness of the leaf segment, sometimes being almost as narrow as on P tenuifolia although again I haven't seen this in my plants to date.

This year its first bloom was on 21 May here, but its bloom date relative to any other peonies is widely variable here depending on the winter. The colder and drier (snow rather than rain) the winter, the earlier it will emerge and flower; likewise after wet and or warmer winters it is reluctant to get growing. It also has the habit here of pushing its crown and new growth buds out above the soil line, seeking just a bit more frost please.

I find that this plant does quite nicely in my woodland bed and in the partial shade. It grows well enough in the open field but stays shorter than in the shadier spots. With its attractive foliage it makes a nice textural foil amongst Hostas, as one example.

I used to think this was an early species- Paeonia veitchii

First, sorry for the gap. The weblog server was down when I attempted to post during the past 2 days. But, one can expect the odd gap in the weeks to come as I try to fit in a bit of work between watching World Cup Football on tv... Of course, if it continues to rain here as much as it has the past 10 days I should have lots of indoor time to spend on the computer.
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This was one of the first species of peony that I came to grow, from seed obtained through the seed exchange of the Devonian Botanical Garden near Edmonton Alberta. In my early ignorance of all the rest of the species, I used to think it was one of the earliest of peonies to bloom. Now of course we all know better, after writing and reading at this weblog.

Although I've been growing it for over a decade it is only recently that I started to see variations in flower colour, in plants grown from seed collected off my plants and in seed obtained from elsewhere.

Common name: Veitch's Peony. Paeonia veitchii has been an easy and low maintenance plant for me, responding well to neglect. Sturdy stems produce an almost dome-shaped bush form by the age of 6 or so; height: 2-3 ft.

All the species we've looked at up to now have only one flower per mature stem. Veitchii however has side-buds, some of which do not mature but usually each stem will put out 3 to 5 flowers. This means a longer bloom period, 2 to 3 weeks as opposed to about 1 week for the earlier species.

It's native to NW China (in the provinces of Gansu, Sichuan and Shensi), where it grows in subalpine meadows and scrub, and to mountain grasslands. In my gardens it is quite adaptable, growing decently in all my bed sites, although flowering less in the woodland bed and remaining shorter more compact in the open field than it is in partial shade.

Some plants have foliage with an interesting etched-like appearance to the veining, while that of others appears smooth. The foliage maintains a great appearance right up to the first frost with no ornamentally interesting colour-change.

The deep red flower here is from seed obtained from a seed exchange as the "late-flowering form" of P veitchii; no mention of any departure from the usual pink flowers. Well, it chooses to flower at the same time as all my other veitchii's (starting 31 May this year) but has this intensely deep red bud that any rose would be proud to have, and flowers that age to crimson. An exciting variant!



These last two photos are of a probable hybrid grown from seed from a seed exchange. The foliage is incredibly finely-cut, almost as fine as tenuifolia. The flower is a very good red with a slight bluish tinge.