2010 Peony Stem Counts

Wow! I just braved the midday 90+ degree heat (head index of 99 degrees) to start on my peony stem counts. This is going to have to be done a bit at a time because it is HOT out there! Counting the peony stems gives me a good idea of which peonies are growing and increasing well from year to year. It may also indicate whether they like their growing conditions. If they are not increasing well, they could have too much sun, too little sun, too little moisture, etc. Also it tells me which peonies I should be dividing this fall. I believe a good rule of thumb is if a peony has 7-8 stems or more, it is a good candidate for division. My intersectional peony 'Bartzella' actually increased from 10 stems last year to 17 stems this year, almost double!

Semi Woody Stems of Peony 'Bartzella'	Herbaceous Stems of Peony 'Mrs. FDR'

2010 Summer Watering Peonies

Wow. We are only 1 week into the summer, and it is already bad. It is soo hot (100 degrees yesterday), and it hasn't rained in over two weeks, since June 13th. I felt so sorry for some of my peonies that I had to water a couple of them today. A few of them were drooping, and on some of them the leaves have turned yellow. This is not good. I hope we get some rain soon!

2010 APS Peony Convention Highlights

Here are few of my other favorite pictures from the 2010 American Peony Society Convention...

Rotary Gardens - Site of 2010 APS Convention

Award Ribbons	Coral Peonies

The Coolest Car at the Convention

2010 APS Peony Convention Hybridizers & Growers

One awesome part of the convention was getting to meet some of my favorite hybridizers and growers. It was neat to pick their brains on what has worked or not worked for them in areas I'm interested in. I also like learning about their operations to see how the business side of things work for them. Here are some pictures of some of the neat people I met at the show. I met lots of other neat people too, but I may not have a gotten a picture...
Reiner Jakubowski (APS Registrar) and me
Sarah Klehm & Roy Klehm (Klehm's Song Sparrow) and me
Don Hollingsworth (Hollingsworth Nursery) & me
Jim Adelman, me, and Carol Adelman (Adelman Peony Gardens)

2010 APS Court of Honor Peonies

There were several beautiful peonies on the Court of Honor this year, but I think my favorite was Peony 'Coral Sunset'. Only one peony made it to the Court of Honor from the amateur class, Peony 'Bartzella'. There were so few entries into the tree peony category that only two of them made it to the Court of Honor, Peony 'Waucedah Princess' and Peony 'Tria'. Actually there were very few tree peonies in the whole show. Some tree peony categories had no entries. So anyone interested in showing tree peonies should enter next year since there is very little competition.

Peony 'Lancaster Imp'	Peony 'Frances Mains'?	Peony 'Topeka Garnet'?
Peony ''?	Peony 'Coral Sunset'	Peony 'Rosedale'
Peony 'Bartzella'	Peony 'Love Affair'
Peony 'Waucedah Princess'	Peony 'Tria'

2010 APS Intersectional Peonies

There were several intersectional peonies entered into the 2010 APS flower show. Only two of those made it to the Court of Honor. One of them was Peony 'Bartzella' (a yellow) which was the only peony entered by someone in the amateur division that made it to the Court of Honor, and the other was 'Love Affair' (a white). The competition flowers were beautiful, but I think their class can be much improved in beauty and form with future hybridizing efforts.

2010 APS Peony Books

I purchased two books while I was at the 2010 American Peony Society Convention this year. Those books were 'Peonies 1997-2007' and 'The Best of 75 Years; 1904-1979' The green book 'Peonies 1997-2007' is normally $34.00 which they sold for $30.00, and the blue book 'The Best of 75 Years; 1904-1979' is normally $20.00 which they sold for $15.00 at the convention. So it was a good opportunity to get these books at a discounted price. The green book was highly recommended to me by Reiner Jakubowski, the registrar of the APS and also the author of the book. He said it was an excellent reference for anyone interested in hybridizing. Also it sounds like he put a lot of work into the publication correcting mistakes in past editions.