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.

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 😀

Dec 5th today, Canary Brilliants which rebloomed end of July after cutting down, is still standing green. The few plants in the front left row that hadn’t been cut back (the ‘comparison plants’), have no green foliage left. Mowing them all today as frost and snow is expected the following days. That clearly marks the end of the 2020 peony activities.

The postman just brought us the latest American Peony Society (APS) Bulletin. An interesting publication that is. Amongst several articles also an obituary for Hermann Krupke, Swedish peony specialist and hybridizer of that pretty Coral Charm seedling named after his wife ‘Christina’. Harvey Buchite from Hidden Springs Flower Farm lists some of…Read More

Paeonia lactiflora from Inner Mongolia in China, flowering right now. The video is from China Global Television Network (CGTN) on twitter.

There are, but if you know the most widely grown peony cultivars, you also know which ones tend to give the highest number of stems.

Check the yearly files (until 2000) for “Production, Postharvest, and Freeze-Drying Evaluations of Fresh-Cut Peonies – Kansas State University” by Karen Gast, they’re in the Hybridizer’s Corner Files section.

These…Read More

OFF-4, which is Old Faithful x Coral Charm. This one (and the previous one CC-1-1) from Hans Maschke. Nice one, many good qualities, but the stems tend to fall open, despite them being as sturdy as its mother.

Elsa Sass, the last flowering one we use for cutting here. This marks the end of our peony cut flower season. A good one, these are third year plants. Last year the stems were a little thin and short, but they’ve made up for that now, taller and some 90% of stems very sturdy.

+3

Myrtle Gentry, which is, according to many growers, the most fragrant herbaceous peony. Late flowering, full double pale pink on stems sturdy enough. Alas, it doesn’t grow very well here and I’ve lost a few plants of it over the years, otherwise it would top my ‘favourite pink’ list. The fragrance of this one is simply fantastic.

A new good seedling flowering for the first time. Parentage uncertain.

Here’s a rare mutation from Coral Sunset, being sold at the Dutch flower auctions as Kingsday. It’s unregistered I think. As the national colour of Holland is orange, it’s a fitting name for this cultivar, it being less salmon and indeed more orange (Kingsday is a national holiday in Holland to honour their King). I personally experience quite…Read More

For years I’ve tried to make some crosses with Belleville, a very large and double dark pink lactiflora, which is the mother of that enormous Command Performance. I got it from Don Hollingsworth a long time ago. I hardly got a few seeds after many many crosses. These are two that are about to flower for the first time in a few weeks’ time. First…Read More

This one is a selection from Pink Vanguard X Lavender Baby. The flower is nothing special, but it has very pretty foliage, consisting of a large number of smaller leaflets that grow slightly one over the other.