Hello everybody.
Glad to have you stopping in again.
The old tool shed here for another one of our regular get togethers.
Yes, you know, this is the height of the peony season, so I have some here to show you.
I'm going to try to give you some pointers on raising your peonies and getting the best flowers possible.
Just want to show you a couple of them.
This, I think, is my favorite.
This nice full double type peony.
This is called Helen Hayes.
Of course, peonies come in a range of types from single all the way to double, and I have some I want to show you.
But first, you know, the peony is one of the oldest flowers we have.
It goes all the way back to early Greek times, and it gets its name, peony, from...
Well, the Greeks had a name for two of their gods.
They called Paeon, P -A -E -O -N, Paeon.
And this was applied, this name was applied to the god of healing and also the god of medicine.
You see, there are a lot of medicines that are derived or were derived from the peony.
It was used a great deal for medicinal purposes.
And one of the remedies was it was used for baldness.
Now, I don't know just what they did, whether they ate the flower or rubbed their roots on the bald spot, but anyway, it's supposed to cure baldness.
It belongs to the buttercup family, and well, there are several other flowers that we know pretty well that belong to that same family.
The troleus and the columbine and also the...
That vine, clematis, all belong to the same family.
Well, the peony is native only to the northern hemisphere, and I suppose one reason for that is that it originated in the northern hemisphere.
And you see, the peony is a very hardy flower.
In fact, it has to go through a winter season, have a full dormant period, in order to bloom.
And that's why it doesn't grow down in southern Florida in warmer climates.
And maybe that's why it never migrated on its own accord south of the equator.
But they come from all parts of the northern hemisphere, from Europe and Asia, but the principal ones come from China.
Now, I'll show you the range of these various flowers from single right on up.
Here's the single.
You see on a single peony, when I grabbed the wrong flower, I thought this was a single, but I see it's a Japanese.
There's...
I'll show you the difference.
Here is a...
Well, let's see.
Yes, this is a single one.
See, a single peony has just a single row of guard petals.
That's these outer petals.
And then the stamens in the center, there are many of them, and they produce pollen.
That is, if you just take a hold and rub the stamens, the pollen comes off on your fingers.
Whereas on the Japanese peony, there's a double row of guard petals around the outside.
It looks almost like a single, but if you look carefully, there's a double row of petals.
Then the stamens don't produce pollen.
That is, most of them don't.
A few of them do, but it's not apparent.
It's down in there, and it doesn't come off on your fingers if you rub them.
So that's the way that you can tell the difference between a single peony and a Japanese.
Now back in the early 1800s, when they first began to develop many of these varieties, and before they had so many as they have now, they began to classify them according to six separate but distinct classifications.
They started with the single, then the Japanese, and they worked along toward the double.
Well, they had the bomb came next, and that grew in kind of a, well it just looked like a bomb, and then came, here this one's kind of falling to pieces.
After the bomb came the semi -double.
That was almost a full double, then the full double, and what they also called a rose.
They had a classification of crown in there too, to try to distinguish the different degrees of doubleness.
Well, as the hybridizers developed so many new varieties, and one was crossed with another, this classification or the distinction between these various classifications became so slight and so overlapping that that's been somewhat abandoned.
Although you still do hear a reference every now and then to some of those different types.
They substituted one, they call it an anemone type.
That's where the stamens have turned to a lot of little petals, like this one.
This still has the outer petals, but then instead of stamens they have a lot of smaller petals right in the center.
Here's maybe a better example of what would be an anemone type.
You see the outer petals and then a lot of small ones in here in place of the stamens.
And the stamens have all disappeared.
The semi -double, here's a semi -double.
You see it's got quite a few petals around the outside.
It still has some stamens in the middle and it's almost double.
Now here's a double.
This is, well the name of this is Philip Revoir.
That's a nice deep red one, but you can see it's full double.
And here, well I'll get back to this Helen Hayes one again, because this is certainly a perfect double one.
You can see how deep it is.
When they get to the double ones, here's, I'll show you the difference here.
I see this is very deep and full.
This one is certainly double, it's a nice pink one, but it's what they call a flat double.
So you see that gives you an idea as to the different types of peonies.
Of course, all these that I'm showing you are known as the herbaceous peonies.
There are two main types, are these herbaceous peonies and also the tree peonies.
Well the tree peonies really aren't a tree peony, even they grow on wood.
They're sort of a little bush, but they're called tree peonies.
They bloom earlier.
I haven't got any here today because they're all through blooming.
But these, as I said, these peonies come from all parts of the northern hemisphere, but the Chinese peonies, these are all, all these that I'm showing you are Chinese peonies, even though one variety is called the Japanese.
But they're all descended principally from the original native Chinese peony.
Well I have some more to show you and I also want to tell you about some of the difficulties as to why your peonies may not be blooming, but first here's a message for you.
Well now getting back to this Japanese peony, I just took this one because, well it has some of these side buds on it.
And one of the things that you can do to encourage the larger bloom on the terminal bud, that is the single end bud on the center of the stem, is to break off these side buds when they're, well it should be done when the center bud is still tight like this.
You can go through and break these all off.
And if you do that, all the strength goes to the center flower and it'll be much larger.
Of course that shortens the duration of the bloom of the flower, because ordinarily the center terminal bud blooms first and then these lateral buds bloom later on.
Well of course if you take them off, then you've just shortened the blooming period, but you get larger ones.
Now another thing that may happen, particularly with the double type, is when you get a larger flower, you may have some trouble like this.
It'll get so large that the stem can't support it and it'll just bend right over.
Well, if, that may be more true with some varieties than others, and if you find that in disbudding you get too many of your peonies bending over, well the best thing to do is just to stop disbudding, then you'll get more smaller, smaller flowers spread over a longer period of time.
Now there's another thing that can make the flowers bend over, and also cause difficulty, and that is heavy rain.
You get a big bloom like this, and well it just soaks up the water and all, it gets down in there, and you get what you call waterlogging.
Here's an example of waterlogging.
Now the reason this hasn't developed is just that the bloom, as it started to open, got filled up with water, and this is the effect.
You get sort of a tight knotted bud.
It's trying to open, but it just can't seem to make it.
Now that's called waterlogging, and that is due simply to the fact that the flower has gotten filled up with water, and it just seems to stop the growth and development.
There's not much you can do about that.
There's some varieties more subject to it than others, and if you're having a lot of trouble with that, with waterlogging, you may want to get rid of the peonies that you have and try a variety that won't be quite as subject to that difficulty.
Now another thing that can cause a lot of trouble with the stems falling over, and before I get into that, if you have one, after a storm, let's take one of these, and we'll take some of this water and just put in there like it would be if it had rained, and now if that falls over just from the weight of it, if it's not too damaged, you can just lift it up carefully and shake that water out.
Well, that flower is pretty well gone.
You see all the petals are coming off, but with a newer bloom, one that's not quite as mature, you can frequently just shake that water out, lift it up carefully, you may have to stake it, and it'll go on blooming.
It certainly is worthwhile if there are a lot of these lateral buds that haven't come out yet.
You can have a lot more bloom from that stem.
But you may find that your blooms have fallen over and right down on the ground.
If you look carefully, you may see sort of a darkening and splitting of the stem right at the base of the stem where it comes out of the ground.
Well, that's called, well, it's probably botrytis blight, and that comes right at the bottom here where it comes out of the ground.
It's one of the most prevalent diseases that attack peonies all over the country, and when that happens, it weakens the stem and it just falls over.
Well, if you have one like that, there's not much that you can do to save this particular stem.
The best thing is to dig down under the ground, cut it off as close to the crown as you can, take it away, kind of scoop the dirt up right around there because this is caused from a fungus disease, and there are a lot of little spores.
They'll get in the ground and you've got to eliminate that.
Also, it's good to treat it with an insecticide, dust it or spray it thoroughly with a good insecticide that has, well, an insecticide for controlling fungus diseases as well as insects.
That botrytis blight can also be carried up to the buds.
Now, here are some buds, you see, that dry they've formed or they've dried up and they haven't developed, and that can be carried up to the buds by ants or other insects.
I always see a lot of ants around on peonies.
The buds secrete sort of a sticky, syrupy substance that the ants like.
Well, the ants themselves don't do any actual damage, that is, in the way of eating the peony plants or buds like so many other insects do, but they are apt to carry the spores of this botrytis disease from the base of the stems around the ground up to the buds, and then you get this effect.
It's sort of a gray mold.
You can kind of scratch it off.
Well, the important thing is not to let that spread around, and any infected areas or plants should be completely destroyed.
It's a good idea to burn them.
Now, another disease, or not a disease, but the effect of insects is caused from thrift.
There are little bits of insects that get in under the petals as the flower starts to open and causes this brown discoloration.
So if you see some of that, that's probably caused from thrift, and the best way of controlling that is a regular program of dusting or spraying.
What did I do with that Japanese one? Well, when the buds are tight, like little marbles from then on, you should keep them thoroughly sprayed and control all those thrifts.
Well, now I have, I'm going to show you in just a minute how to divide peony roots and transplant them and how to plant them.
But first, I have another message for you.
I want to show you this real prize specimen.
Look at the size of that peony.
Isn't that a beauty? That's, this variety is called blush.
It's almost a pure white.
It has just a blush of pink in there.
But speaking of the beauty of peonies, I want to show you some time lapse pictures.
I have some here to show you, and let's just take a look at them.
Well, here is Bill Christman out in the peony patch.
He's looking over some of the buds that are about ready to open.
Bill was secretary of the American Peony Society for 27 years before he agreed to be president.
He certainly has an authority on peonies.
Let's take a look at this peony open now with these time lapse pictures.
This particular one is, well, it's a semi -double, or you see that it will be when it opens.
It's a rather deep red.
See, it's not a full double.
Now it opens up wide like that when the sun strikes it and closes up each night.
Now this is the white japh type.
The name of it is Toro no Maka.
Yeah, I guess that's the way you pronounce it.
I have trouble with some of these, the names of peonies.
But you can see it's a white japh.
It has lots of stamens and no pollen.
Now this is Julia Grant, a rather deep red one.
It's a hybrid, hybrid type, cup shape, sort of like the single, but there are a few more petals.
And here's another japh type one, a very light pink, almost going to white in the center part there.
See all those stamens, but no pollen.
The single has the pollen.
And this is a very deep red one.
This is the bomb type of peony.
You can see those outer petals open, then there's that whole bunch of petals in the center there, look like a bomb's exploded.
Now they're really not large enough to be called true petals, and still they're a little too large to be called just the small petaloids, more or less in between.
Now this iris is called fire dance.
I didn't have any more pictures of peonies in time lapse and got a minute or two, so I thought I'd show you some iris.
This is a particularly nice one, I think, more or less red edges and yellow center.
This is a xanth.
Now watch this open, it's a very brilliant deep yellow one.
The peonies all open during the daytime and close up at night, and the iris all open during the nighttime.
This is another xanth.
Now watch the petals wilt and weather up.
See that one open? That one doesn't have very good shape or form.
Those petals that are standing up should come together closer at the top.
Those are called the standards, and the petals that are hanging down are called the falls.
That one didn't open up to form a very well -shaped flower.
This is a beardless iris.
This is the spuria iris.
Those first larger type are the bearded type of iris.
They have a lot of little hairs along the upper part of the fall.
And this is a beardless.
It has no whiskers on it.
And this is the Japanese iris.
Watch that open out, just sort of flat, and then as it withers away, the petals roll themselves up very neatly.
Well, that gives you an idea of how the peonies developed or how they grow and develop.
They're certainly a beautiful flower.
Now I have a peony root here.
Let me clean some of this stuff out of the way.
This is a plant that I dug up.
And of course, you know, a peony seed, if you get any seed pods, well, I'll just take a look at this one.
You can see it right down in the center here.
You can take those seeds and plant them, but of course, every seed is going to produce a peony of a little different variety, a little different shape and color.
And if you want to propagate a desirable variety that you have, that has to be done by dividing the roots.
Well, you can dig up a clump, get rid of those leaves, cut them off, oh, three or four inches, cut all the stems off.
Then you want to take, wash all the dirt off and start trying to work these clumps apart.
Well, right here is a good place to make a division.
You can almost break them apart.
But after you loosen that up, you want to take a good knife and you can just cut them apart.
See, well, there's one section that just broke off.
That'll make a clump right there.
Now I'll cut down right through the middle.
And I've got, there's another nice clump.
This is a pretty good size clump.
That could be divided again.
Now when you buy peonies, they're sold usually with a little root clump like this, with anywhere from three to five eyes.
But now the eyes are these little new shoots that start coming out from the side.
They're more prominent a little later in the season because the time to make your divisions and to plant them is later on.
You can make the divisions in late August or start planting your peonies anytime in September or September, October, November, right up until freezing weather.
It's a good time to plant them in the fall because then they get a chance to start some new roots before the tops begin growing in the spring.
I want to show you one other thing here that you see these, I've cut these now, so the roots are about four or five inches.
And if there are any damaged ones where they're broken, cut them off so there's a good clean cut because they'll start growing better from a good clean cut than if they will from a break.
Now the roots of peonies actually will go down three or four feet.
They're very deep roots.
But when you're making these divisions, it's best to have sections of the root only about five to six inches long because then that encourages more growth up around the crown.
More of those eyes will come out.
If you plant too long a root, then it starts sending out little side lateral roots and not so many top eyes will break out and grow.
So that's why it's a good idea not to plant too large a root but one whole five to six inches long.
Now after you've planted it in the fall, it's a good idea the first season, the first winter, after the ground is frozen to put a mulch over the top because that mulch keeps the ground from thawing and freezing.
Put it on after the ground is frozen because with these new short roots in there, they're much more apt to be heaved up by the thawing and freezing action of the ground than after they are established and they've got good long roots down in the ground to hold them.
And it's very important in planting peonies that you plant them with these little eyes just two inches under the surface of the ground.
Now if they're much deeper than that, that may be one reason that you're not getting bloom.
Or if they're much shallower and get worked up, that may be the cause for frost damage.
The peony is perfectly hardy, but those eyes must be underground.
If they get up where they're exposed, they're apt to be damaged from frost or the severe winter.
Another thing when you plant them, it's a good idea to dig out a hole about at least 18 inches deep, fill it with good soil.
And peonies are heavy feeders, so it's advisable to have a little plant food in there.
You want to be certain it's packed down enough so that it's not going to settle and then your eyes will be considerably more than two inches underground.
Well that gives you an idea of, I hope, how to plant them.
And now here's another message for you.
Well while I have these root cuttings here, I might also tell you about root nematodes, which are little eel worms.
They're sort of microscopic little worms that get into the roots and they cause a swelling, a lot of little lumpy -like growths.
Well that will cause the blooms.
Usually the result is that the buds may form and then just never develops.
So if you're having that trouble, one of the possibilities might be root nematodes.
They're more prevalent in the south than they are in the northern latitudes.
If you suspect that, you can just dig down under the ground a little and examine one of these roots.
And if you find that condition, well it's pretty serious.
Probably the best thing to do is to dig the plant up and all the dirt around it and discard the dirt and burn the plant and get another one.
But don't plant any more peonies in that same location for a couple of years at least.
Now if it's a very valuable plant or one you want to try to save, there is a way that you might be able to cure that root nematode condition.
And that is to put the root, you have to dig it all up, put it in hot water, water of 120 degrees temperature.
And it can't be any over that.
If it's 125, it's going to probably kill the plant.
You have to keep stirring it and you should have a thermometer, a candy thermometer or something like that in the water to make certain that it's not over 120 degrees.
Leave the peony root, the whole root of the plant in there for 30 minutes.
And as I say, it's hazardous.
It may kill the plant, but there's a chance that you may be able to cure it also.
And if you want to try it, well that's about the only thing that can be recommended to try to cure nematodes because they get in the roots and well they're just very hard to get rid of.
So you can try that if you want to, but remember in doing so that you, it is quite risky and you may kill the plant.
But when the plant's once infected, it's a question of getting rid of it altogether or trying to cure it.
Well those pointers ought to help you with your peonies and growing some nice ones out in the yard.
They're certainly a beautiful flower to have.
So here's hoping or here's wishing you good luck with your peonies and be sure to come around for our next regular get together and I'll be seeing you.
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