2020 First Tree Peony Blooms of the Year!

Tree Peony Paeonia Ostii
The first bloom of the season opened today! It's the second day of spring, and the tree peonies are already starting to bloom! It seems a little early to me, and I looked back over my records from the last 15 years, and this is the earliest peony bloom I've ever had! By almost a week! It looks like the previous earliest bloom start date was March 26th. Now this year in 2020, the blooms are starting on March 20th! Wow! I don't know if this is global warming or that groundhog Phil, but whatever it is, spring is here!


Tree Peony Paeonia Ostii
Do you remember that peony covered in snow this year, 2020 First Snow of the Season @ Southern Peony? This is the same peony pictured above with all buds fully intact. Sure enough this tree peony shrugged off that snow and continued to grow and develop several buds that were already growing. It has been in the 80s yesterday and today. Quite warm! Some plants are a bit sad during the heat of the day. The ground still has a lot of moisture, but we could really use a little bit of rain especially for new plants and to help wash off all of this yellow pollen! Yes, that's here too, but all of these flowers are the things that makes spring so happy!


Tree Peony Paeonia Ostii

2020 Tree Peony 'Joseph Rock Double' from Song Sparrow

I'm not sure if any of you have seen the news, lol, but there's a pandemic out there. Since we can't spend any money at the stores, we might as well buy more peonies instead! I couldn't help but notice that this Tree Peony 'Joseph Rock Double' was not sold out yet at Song Sparrow Farm & Nursery. Many of their other tree peonies are sold out. I've been wanting this peony for a while now and have seen it auctioned at the APS Annual Banquet a few times before. It usually goes for higher than its retail price on the Song Sparrow web site, at the auction. So I just decided that this year is the year to get it. Also the nice thing about tree peonies from Song Sparrow is they sell them as potted plants. So this tree peony will ship now in the spring. So you don't have to wait until next year to see your tree peony grow, and it's possible you might even get a bloom from your tree peony this year! Here's hoping!! :-)


Tree Peony 'Joseph Rock Double' @ Song Sparrow
The description of this Tree Peony 'Joseph Rock Double' on the Song Sparrow web site says, "More petallage than Joseph Rock, but same vigor, lush foliage and staggering blossom beauty. Radiant white with purple inner flares. Rare and seldom offered. A strong plant with fragrant blooms." I am interested to see how vigorous this one is. Some grafted tree peonies struggle to get established here. However it seems that tree peonies that grow from seed and become mature seem to be very vigorous here. Also it may depend on the quality of the graft for grafted tree peonies. There are only 2 tree peonies on the Southern Peony Best Performers list so far. So I am eager to see how this one grows!

2020 Black Purple Emerging Foliage of Peony 'Dark Chocolate' to Die For!

Peony 'Dark Chocolate'
I couldn't help but notice (again!) the foliage on herbaceous Peony 'Dark Chocolate'! Even if the flowers weren't super cool, the foliage on this bad boy would be awesome enough of a reason to grow it! As you can see the foliage is a purple-black color, and even with a flash photo and lots of fill light, the color of the foliage is still quite dark. It is very different than your normal pink/green emerging foliage. The leaves will eventually turn green, but in the meantime, I'm enjoying the rare color of the foliage. It is really cool to see all of the different emerging foliage colors.


Peony 'Dark Chocolate' (Flash Photo)

Peony 'Dark Chocolate'
I don't have any peony flowers open here yet. So it is nice to have some cool things to entertain you in the garden while we anticipate those large, colorful blooms. It is fun to watch the new foliage emerging on all kinds of garden plants. It always looks so clean, bright, and fresh - free from disease, fungal infections, or pest damage. Spring is definitely the best season! I hope you have lots of peony foliage colors popping up in your garden. If not, now might be the time to add some peonies with cool foliage colors to your Peony Wish List to order and plant this fall!


Peony 'Dark Chocolate' (Flash Photo)

2020 Free Mulch for My Peony Beds!

Free Mulch for Peony Beds
Looks like Friday the 13th was my lucky day! I got a call while I was working that day from Tony, my favorite mulch guy, to see if I wanted any mulch. Of course I did!! I had been thinking about calling my favorite tree service to see if they had any, but have been quite busy lately and had not made the call. He must have known I needed it. :-) He said it was only a small half load. That's fine with me! I'll take what I can get (especially when it is free)! Here in the South mulching is an important part of growing peonies! We have a much longer, hotter, and drier summer than many other parts of the country where peonies are grown. So protecting the plants from the stress of extended droughts and high heat during the summer months is essential.


Free Mulch for Peony Beds
As you can see some of the mulch fell on top of my grass, which is not good for the grass. I have had my grass die in the past when I've gotten an especially large load of mulch directly on the grass or partially covering the grass. If you don't get the mulch off the grass quick enough, it will die from lack of sunlight and overheating (large mulch piles can get quite hot!). Luckily, I was able to get all of this mulch spread out yesterday. After 31 loads in my Gorilla Cart, my husband came back from playing soccer with my son and volunteered to load up some mulch for me. I gladly accepted his help, as I was pretty tired by this point. He helped me with the last 3 loads, and we were able to finish it all! I put a large part of it on my front garden bed, which contains a magnolia tree, tree peonies, herbaceous peonies & double daylilies. I think it turned out pretty nice. :-)


Front Garden Bed with New Mulch

2020 Tree Peony Seeds from Luoyang, China Grow!!

Tree Peony Seedling #2 on 3/9
I was beginning to give up on those tree peony seeds from China, 2018 Planting Tree Peony Seeds from Luoyang China, but it looks like they are starting to germinate this year! I stared at some empty dirt and kept picking weeds out of the area last year hoping to find a sprout, but never did. After not seeing anything pop up yet this year, I thought there was no hope for them this year, until I saw a seedling pop up in that area a week or so ago. Even then I was suspicious whether that seedling came from one of the seeds from China or just some random lost or rogue seed in the bed. When I looked for that first seed a few days later the bed was empty - no seedling. I began to wonder whether some underground (or above ground?) critter got the roots and/or seedling. I imagined some animal just sucking it underground, since the tree peony seedling was nowhere in sight.


Tree Peony Seedling #1 on 3/9
After spending some time pulling some miniature weeds from the seedling bed, I finally discovered that first seedling (Tree Peony Seedling #1 pictured above). As you can see it was either killed by some low overnight temperatures (which we did experience) or some kind of fungal wilt. The cold temperatures can also cause the wilt. So it is really hard to say what the culprit was in this case (but some corroborating evidence may exist for the cold theory, as I've noticed some selected tips of other new plants with burnt - dried & blackened - tips). So I think this tree peony seedling may have experienced cold burn/freeze damage. That's very sad. This is the first year this peony tried to grow a leaf, and it got knocked down. I don't think this one will be able to come back next year. I guess that is just part of nature's selection process.


Tree Peony Seedling Signs

Tree Peony Seedling #2 on 3/12
I guess you could say the biggest fail with these seeds are the signs. I took a lot of time to figure out how to plant these seeds with their signs since the peonies I purchased had no names on the flower only pictures. I even purchased some special Black & Decker UV plastic laminate to laminate them with. As you can see that laminate was not really UV protected. Too bad about the false advertising on those laminating sheets. These signs didn't even last 1 full year before fading. The flowers photos were all so beautiful and colorful when I put them on there. Oh well, at least I took a photo of them and scanned them into the computer before I put them outside in the sun to fade! LOL


Tree Peony Seedling #3 with Signs
These tree peony seedlings are definitely having some challenges. As you can see Tree Peony Seedling #3 (pictured below) looks like it had 2 tiny stems originally, and one of them looks like it has already been bitten off. I hope some of these Chinese tree peony seedlings make it through Mother Nature's wrath into adulthood in a few years, so that I may see their beautiful blossoms. I'm just hoping that they aren't all single, white Paeonia ostii seeds/seedlings. Only time will tell...


Tree Peony Seedling #3