2016 Peony Data Entry in Winter Time

I finally finished inputting the data I collected during the 2015 peony season last night. That ruler is to help me stay on the correct line. I think next year I need to go to two pages. The print is just getting way too small to keep everything on one page. Also my baby bear, Isabella, was keeping me company during this tedious work. Her smile made it a bit more manageable. I am looking forward to analyzing the data to see what it will reveal. I now have 10 years of bloom data. Now that I have 10 years' worth of data, it's time to put that 2015 Peony Bloom Data in Peony Database to good use! Look for some bloom data coming out sometime this year on my Bloom Dates page. :-)
The only problem I had with this year's data is that my Peony 'Red Charm' didn't bloom at all since its buds were blasted by our late winter storm, 2015 Early Peonies Suffered Frozen Bud Blast. So I don't have an offset date. After examining the last five years' worth of data, it looks like my Peony 'Grace Root' has bloomed within 1 day of Red Charm in 4 out of 5 years. So it sounds like Peony 'Grace Root's bloom date may be a suitable offset date for the 2015 data. Also Peony anemoneflora's bloom date was within 1 day of Red Charm in 3 out of 5 years and both Peony 'Grace Root' and Peony anemoneflora bloomed on the same date in 2015. So this will be my 2015 offset date, April 24th. I know the bloom date of Peony 'Red Charm' has been used as an offset date to calculate bloom times for peonies in the past. However, I'm not sure I'm convinced that it is a sounds scientific method. I may use bloom mean or median date, or some type of combination of these.

2016 Peony Photos on Main Page

Southern Peony now has 50 peony pictures in our Photos section! This month, for February, we are featuring the soft pink Peony 'Roselette' on our main page and have also added it to our peony Photos page. Each month we add a new peony photo to our main page and to our Photo archive. That way it steadily grows and gives you all something new to look at (and lust after). ;-) This archive can also be used as a reference for identifying your own peonies or finding new ones you'd like to grow. I started this project in 2012, adding watermarks and larger photos in 2013, wrote about it in 2014 Southern Peony Photos, and it has been growing steadily since. If there is particular peony in my Inventory list that you'd like me to add a photo of, please leave a comment and let me know or send me an email, and I will try to add it if I already have a good photo of it. If I don't already have a good photo of it, I will try to get one this spring! Happy (Peony) Gardening!

Peony 'Roselette'

2016 Species in APS Handbook of the Peony 1st Edition

It was nice to take a little time for myself this past weekend and catch up on a little reading. I purchased the Manual of the American Peony Society First Edition (aka APS Handbook of the Peony 1st Edition) almost three years ago now (before my son Maddox!). Yikes! Yes, it got put to the side even though I was almost finished. However, a hot bath with some peony soaking salts from K. Hall Design Peony Products and a little free time netted me a few more pages. I was able to finish the section on species peonies. Apparently there was much confusion and many more categories of species peonies back when this book was written in 1928. The author links many of the species classes together noting there are little difference between x and y categories. It seems this topic has been subject to many revisions over the years with each plant discoverer and Paeonia genus researcher using their own methods of peony species classifications. It will be nice when one day all of them have been DNA mapped and we are able to classify them conclusively!
Manual of the American Peony Society
Plate XXXIX. Officinalis rubra plena

2016 New Intersectional Peony 'Sugar Plum Fairy'

When I got an email from Hollingsworth Peonies this past weekend about their new peony cultivars, I was definitely curious. What a nice surprise to find out about a newly registered and currently available intersectional cultivar. The flower's name is Peony 'Sugar Plum Fairy'. The short bush and pale pink flower of this peony seem aptly named after a petite, cotton candy colored ballerina, The Sugar Plum Fairy from Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker. Tchaikovsky being one of my favorite composers and me being a little ballerina for almost 10 years is reason enough to buy it now, and so I did. I'm guessing this little dancer is even pretty than her picture. I've also added this newly offered Peony 'Sugar Plum Fairy' to my 2016 Intersectional Peony Catalog Price Comparison List!

Hollingsworth Peonies'
Intersectional Peony 'Sugar Plum Fairy'

2016 Questions - Peony 'Bartzella' Seeds on Ebay

I received this question from Ted in zone 8:
"You may have seen the "Bartzella" seeds for sale on ebay? I wonder how they get Bartzella to produce seeds?"


Yellow "Intersectional" Paeonia Peony Seeds on Ebay
Actually I haven't seen those. I just looked them up. I believe those seeds are a hoax. My Peony 'Bartzella' has never set any seed, and I'm guessing yours hasn't either. The seller is likely playing into the fact that Itoh peonies are generally expensive (although their prices have come down quite a bit already). So they are trying to sell these "seeds" for less than the cost of an intersectional root, but highway robbery, nonetheless. I definitely would not purchase those seeds, as they are likely some seeds from an undesirable, common peony and will most likely not be yellow at all. Buyer Beware for sure!