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.