A passion for peonies - Oregon Association of Nurseries

Doreen Wynja / Monrovia Growers
A passion for
peonies
These flowering beauties offer greater
performance and variety than ever before
Monrovia's Takara™
peony (Paeonia ×
'Smith Opus 2' PP
22374) was developed
through the company's
Itoh peony breeding
partnership with
breeder Don Smith. The
name Takara is taken
from the Japanese
word for “treasure”
— and the selection's
stunning colors back up
that name.
By Elizabeth Petersen
Beautiful bouquets
The cut peony market is highly
competitive, Meskers said. This is
because peony blooms all come on at
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The popularity of the peony is not
a new thing.
Every year in May and June, gardeners savor the showy, old-fashioned
blooms of peonies. During the same
bit of spring, cut stems of the beloved
flowers go out to florists, who disperse
them for spring festivities and bouquets.
One cut flower grower alone —
Oregon Flowers, in Aurora, Ore. —
harvests some 250,000 peony stems
every spring. “Everybody has a story
about grandma’s peonies,” said Martin
Meskers, owner of Oregon Flowers.
To satisfy demand, Oregon growers
produce a broad array of peonies: cut
stems and rare species peonies, herbaceous peonies, tree peonies, and the
exciting (and now more affordable) Itoh
or intersectional peonies. The options
are breathtaking.
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A passion for peonies
Phil Thornburg
The Digger
Yachiyotsubaki
peony
(P.v2.pdf
suffruticosa
is a favorite of garden designer Phil
OAN
- Sun Gro Stoptree
the Line
HHDPS
2/1/2012 'Yachiyotsubaki')
2:22:39 PM
Thornburg's. They are not true trees; rather, they are woody shrubs and don't die to the ground.
the same time. “Demand is high, but so
is supply,” he said.
Only the earliest peonies appear in
time for Mother’s Day, so growing earlier varieties provides the slightest edge.
Probably the most popular cut
peony, Meskers said, is Sarah Bernhardt
(Paeonia lactiflora ‘Sarah Bernhardt’),
an old variety with huge, double pink
blooms that produces an average of ten
stems a year. Other popular doubles are
‘Red Charm’ and ‘Coral Charm.’
Since Meskers supplies lilies and
other cut flowers to his customers year
round, selling in-season cut peonies is
not a problem.
In the garden: old favorites
For gardeners who want cutting
flowers, peonies make desirable garden
plants too, said landscape designer Phil
“They have great
habits, great bloom
counts, great flowers,
beautiful fragrance
and little to no
disease issues.”
— June Condruk
Blooming Nursery
“a proven track record in the Pacific
Northwest,” Sales/Marketing Coordinator
June Condruk said. “They have great
habits, great bloom counts, great flowers, beautiful fragrance and little to no
disease issues,”
Condruk favors Paeonia l. ‘Edulis
Superba’ and Paeonia ‘President
Roosevelt.’ Edulis Superba has rose-red
outer petals and magenta-rose inner
petals edged in silver.
“It is so very showy and elegant;
I love it,” Condruk said. ‘President
Roosevelt’ has dark red flowers with
yellow stamens and a gorgeous scent.
Monrovia Growers, which has a
growing facility in Dayton, Ore., offers
an assortment of peonies too. “Peonies
are a wonderful group of plants,” New
Plant Director Nicholas Staddon said.
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Thornburg, owner of WinterBloom Inc.,
a sustainable design firm in Tigard, Ore.
“The blooms are extravagant,” he
said. “Even though they last for a short
time in late spring and early summer,
they are very large and come in amazing colors.”
Plus, peonies have compound,
deeply lobed foliage that provides a
backdrop for later blooming flowers
and brings fall colors to the scene.
Peonies work well in Northwest,
Japanese and English style gardens,
Thornburg said. He recommends using
herbaceous peonies as singles or in
groups of similar or blending colors. A
tree peony benefits from a special spot
to show it off.
Blooming Nursery, a wholesale
grower in Cornelius, Ore. grows herbaceous garden peonies that have
Doreen Wynja / Monrovia Growers
The enormous yellow
flowers on P. x 'Yellow
Doodle Dandy' PPAF —
measuring up to eight
inches across — truly make
it a dandy. The plant was
bred by Don Smith and is
marketed by Monrovia as
Yumi™ Itoh Peony. The name
means “beauty.”
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A passion for peonies
“We grow some very old herbaceous
varieties that have earned awards for
garden performance.”
Brothers Herbs & Peonies, a retail
nursery in Wilsonville, Ore., specializes in tree peonies, which offer a more
structural option, even in the winter.
Known as the “king of flowers” in
Asia, tree peonies are more properly
classified as shrubs, owner Rick Rogers
said. In a well-drained, sunny location
with protection from wind, the longlived woody plants will produce huge,
colorful flowers for ages.
Rogers likes to combine tree peonies with other plants such as Japanese
maples, smaller peonies, daylilies
and hostas. “Don’t crowd them in too
closely with faster-growing material,”
he advised.
Rogers is a regular at local garden
shows and Farmers’ Markets, but sells
most of his product to Midwest, East
Coast and foreign customers, including China.
“The Beijing Botanical Garden
bought 400 hybrid tree peonies from us
several years ago for the new American
Hybrid section of the Tree Peony
Garden, and the plants are settling in
nicely,” Rogers said.
Typically people get peonies from
China, not the other way around. “We
have a long history of knowing our
product,” Rogers said, however.
Brothers offers nearly 100 varieties
collected from a wide geographical area,
including North America, Asia, Europe,
and New Zealand. Many of their offerings are hybrids of Paeonia suffruticosa.
Rogers grows tree peonies on their
own roots. “(This is) a difficult and
costly, but worthwhile propagation
technique that ensures success when
growing these distinct plants,” he said.
In the garden: best of both
Both Blooming Nursery and
Monrovia also grow intersectional peonies, also known as Itoh peonies.
The name Itoh honors the efforts of
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A passion for peonies
mark krautmann
Heritage Seedlings offers several species peonies from Asia, and the fernleaf peony (Paeonia tenuifolia)
is among the most popular. Reaching 1–2 feet tall, it's considered ideal for rock gardens.
Toichi Itoh, the first hybridizer to successfully cross herbaceous and tree peonies in the 1940s. Itoh peonies have
been around for years, but until recently, they were extremely expensive.
“Itohs were out of reach for many,
but with lots of breeding, the use of tissue culture and more plants available
on the market, their prices are coming
down,” Condruk said.
Although still more expensive than
herbaceous peonies, Itohs are an enticing option.
“Itoh peonies combine the best of
herbaceous and tree peonies,” Condruk
said. “They have vigorous growth, extra
strong flower stems, and handsome foliage that dies back in the winter. They
produce abundant blooms in amazing
colors, which are larger and last much
longer than either parent’s blooms.”
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It's tough to beat the color combinations of Paeonia 'Cora Louise', with yellow flares in the middle
surrounded by petals that range from hot pink in the middle to light pink at the edges.
Doreen Wynja / Monrovia Growers
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Doreen Wynja / Monrovia Growers
Bartzella (Paeonia × ‘Bartzella’),
which Staddon called the “grandmother
of them all,” was introduced in the
1960s. Back then, just one of the prized
plants would cost at least $1,000.
The first of its kind, Bartzella boasts
large, bright yellow double blooms typical of tree peonies with sturdy stems
that do not require staking. The vigorous plants stay only about three feet tall
and wide.
“We know these plants will benefit
the gardening public,” Staddon said.
Monrovia partnered with breeder
Don Smith and developed a new
program to memorialize Mr. Itoh,
Staddon said. Representing about 20
years of work, Monrovia’s Itoh varieties
are getting Japanese names with English
translations. These include Keiko™,
which means “adored” (P. × ‘Pink
Double Dandy’); Takara™, which means
“treasure” (P. × ‘Smith Opus 2’ PPAF);
Yumi™, which means “beauty” (P. ×
‘Yellow Doodle Dandy’); and Misaka™,
which means “beautiful blossom” (P. ×
‘Smith Opus 1’ PPAF).
“Itoh peonies develop very strong
stems to hold up their big flowers, both
in the garden and in a vase,” Staddon
said. With both primary and secondary
buds, plants can produce as many as 50
blooms in a season, and some sport a
soft, sweet fragrance.
“Yellow used to be available only
in tree peonies,” Condruk said. “Now
there are yellows in every hue and
exciting multi-colors. New combinations
of colors are coming out every year.”
The inside flares of some Itoh peonies have contrasting colors. Mikasa, for
instance, starts out almost amber, then
matures to a “dazzling display of stunning butter yellow, eight-inch blooms
with red flares,” Staddon said.
Blooming Nursery has only recently
listed Itoh peonies in its catalog. “We
reached the golden ratio when enough
plants were available on the market to
bring the prices down to a non-collector status,” Condruk said.
Julia Rose peony (Paeonia × 'Julia Rose') is another Itoh selection that requires no staking. Its large,
double blossoms have a delicate apricot color to them, blending to reddish-purple at the top.
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A passion for peonies
Specialties for the collector
Mark Krautmann, owner of Heritage
Seedlings in Salem, Ore. focuses on
specialty tree peonies for the industry.
Most of his crop travels from Oregon
to the northeast and mid-Atlantic states
and the Ohio Valley.
Krautmann grows a rare Chinese
species peony, Paeonia delaveyi, the
Maroon Tree Peony. It is an unusual
deciduous shrub that matures to five
to six feet tall and displays nodding,
two-to-three inch, maroon flowers with
yellow centers and a fine fragrance.
The elaborately dissected foliage resists
Botrytis too, Krautmann said.
“Species peonies are not as showy
as the double-flowering deciduous
peonies of mail-order catalogs or
Grandma’s garden,” Krautmann said.
“However, tree peonies of the red and
yellow P. delaveyi species are enchanting short plants, only two to three feet
tall, that thrive with benign neglect in
rich garden soil.”
It is native to south-central China.
“This species is rare in cultivation, but
we made it a priority to grow it and
make it available in wholesale quantities
to the garden trade,” Krautmann said.
For Krautmann, these peonies represent the potential for strong, cooperative relationships between China and
the United States.
“We got rare seed during a trip to
China and friendships made in the mid’80s,” he said. “Now, we grow the species, but they don’t in China. There, the
roots are collected for medicinal purposes, and the original plants that produced our seed are gone. On a return
trade mission, I presented Madame
Deng (Deng Xiao Ping’s wife) a yellowflowering Paeonia delaveyi var. lutea,
now relatively rare in China. I explained
that we are growing the Chinese peonies, and the same jet stream that brings
rain to China also brings rain to the
USA. We are not so different in our
dependence on the natural world, clean
air and water, and healthy hard-working
populations. She liked that a lot.”
Species tree peonies are hard to
Doreen Wynja / Monrovia Growers
grow, Krautmann said. They cannot
tolerate wet ground, they are hard to
propagate by grafting onto roots of the
deciduous peony (P. lactiflora), and
they are not available in tissue culture.
“They are harvested in late summer,
which is out of sync with other plants
that we harvest December to February,”
he said.
Demand for Krautmann’s peonies
is steady, he said, although demand
is higher for Paeonia tenuifolia, the
Fernleaf peony. “(It is) an exceptionally
choice diminutive plant for a rock garden,” he said.
Garden center owners should order
very early — no later than midsummer —
and take delivery of bare-root liners no
later than September, Krautmann advised.
“The red and yellow P. delaveyi,
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Misaka means "beautiful blossom" in Japanese, and the Misaka™ peony lives up to its billing. The
blossoms of this intersectional hybrid open with an orange color and fade to a peachy yellow.
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A passion for peonies
Doreen Wynja / Monrovia Growers
In addition to the 'Yellow Double Dandy' peony shown on page 26, there is also a 'Pink Double Dandy',
marketed as Keiko™.
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and the Ludlow (P. ludlowii, another
tree peony) make great garden plants,
but the Fernleaf peony will get overwhelmed by other plants in most
gardens unless given its own competition-free spot so it can charm your
socks off,” he said.
To sell peonies, Condruk recommends that retailers display actual-size
photos of peony flowers, or display cut
blooms near the cash register. “Plants
people are visual,” she said.
Provide information on growing
peonies too, she said, since “peonies
have a reputation for being finicky,
which is not true.”
Elizabeth Petersen writes for gardeners
and garden businesses, coaches students and writers, and tends a one-acre
garden in West Linn, Ore. She can be
reached at [email protected].