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Dark red ones shown on Facebook. First ever image I’ve seen of Sable. Peter Brand is in reality much paler and more reddish compared to Buckeye Belle. Red Glory I’ve never seen and the Russian (?) one in the lower right corner I had never heard of. One could add Valkyrie and the species P. parnassica to have most of the darkest peonies in existence.2 Comments![Profile picture of khurtekant]()
Hello Bob. I’ve also got both Old Soldier and Valkyrie with the latter being my favorite as well and with the same remarks. Another nice dark red one is Night Watch, which grew very well here. Haven’t done anything with it. I do have a few seedlings with P. parnassica, although still very small and, until now, many of them have struggled and died (when nearly all other seedlings had no problems at all). I do hope for some dark red there eventually.
Interesting to see a picture of ‘Sable’. I’ve always wondered if it still existed. I obtained a plant of Pherson’s Sable x Eclipse from Don Hollingsworth some years ago, but it’s more of an oddity than anything else. It’s very very tall; much taller than other hybrids, with long and twisted awkward stems, and a red color that is not particularly attractive. Was it used in hybridizing both ‘Old Soldier” and ‘Valkyrie’ ? As I understand, Bill S. lost his notes on these cvs, so it’s hard to know, but apparently it was involved in at least one of them. It’s my feeling that Valkyrie is the better red of the two, but has poorer stems than Old Soldier, but may make for a better pollen source than OS, as far as the red color of seedlings are concerned. Neither of these two seem to be as dark as Sable is, nor is Sable x Eclipse as dark as Sable either, if the pictures I’ve seen of Sable are correct. None of my many seedlings using pollen from ( Old Soldier x Valkyrie ) on other things are of a super-dark red either, so how one would go about bringing this same Sable-type dark red into further hybrid generations is a matter that I’m not sure of.