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khurtekant wrote a new post
2018 shall be remembered as one of the shortest peony seasons ever (hopefully), it started late here in Belgium and ended very soon. Cold weather during the months of March and April resulted in postponing the
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Old Faithful is somewhat the exception to the rule here. It seems the petals can take water standing in the bud/open flower for a very, very long time before becoming infected with botrytis. I’ve never had any problems with flowers from them, notwithstanding the fact that the bud has a ‘rose-bud’ which is exposed to rain, cold and wind for a very long time. So it’s indeed not necessarily that kiss of death. But other varieties are not that resistant. I’ve given up on Moonrise as a cutflower because of these open buds, I got too many complaints from florists that the flowers opened with rotten stamens. I could leave the stems with open buds on the plants of course, not all stems do have an ugly bud, but the proportion of open buds in this cultivar has always been very high the years that I have been growing it. Too bad, as it does have many qualities, floriferous, early, large flower, large buds, yellow color, very sturdy stems. Although there’s also a second reason for not growing it anymore: it smells awkward, and I mean really, really awkward (less of a problem when growing it outside, but as a cutflower…).
You have noticed in some of your seedlings that they didn’t show those open buds when young, but at a more mature stage, they somehow appeared. Here the problem occurs one year more than the other. I’m not sure it has to do with the plants being more mature, the one location where Vanilla Schnapps showed the open buds, happened to be newly replanted divisions, whilst the locations with no ‘damage’ were older plants (2 years old and 3 years old). Therefore I would think temperature is more an issue. And also the fact that the sidebuds on these same young plants had perfectly closed buds, would make me think it’s the cold that somehow causes this. These sidebuds have developed somewhat later and they may thus have been in another less sensitive stage when the cold (wind?) damaged the further developed main buds. I’ll add an image of another variety Great Northern, which grew here for the first time, it also had an open main bud, but you can also see the sidebud perfectly formed. This is thus also a young plant with both a good and bad bud on the same stem. The open bud turned out to be a flower with several rotten petals and stamens in it, we’ll see if it is a returning issue. I don’t know what other factors could be causing this? Humidity? Soil? Soil probably not I’d think or the problem would be present each year and probably on every flower.
I’ve not noticed any difference between single, semi-double, or double cultivars. Some cultivars seem more susceptible than others. I should probably take notes what cultivars have most issues with it. And maybe ‘rose-buds’ are another issue, separate from ‘open buds’, the latter primarily being the fact that the outer petals are shorter than they ought to be.
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khurtekant added a new New topic, How to post about
Anybody can read the forums, to be able to post a topic or reply to one, you’ll have to login first. It’s very easy to post in our forums. Just write your questions or stories here and press ‘submit’, after which your post will appear and others will have the opportunity to reply to it.…
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khurtekant wrote a new post
A peony that really stood out from the rest in the beginning of this season was ‘Just Peachy’. It’s a sibling to Dreamtime, Kathy’s Touch, Nelda’s Joy and probably some others as well, all deriving from the same
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khurtekant wrote a new post
Tranquil Dove is a hybrid peony that derives from a somewhat shady cross. It’s an open pollinated seedling from Halcyon, a strain of very alike plants. Halcyon derives from some P. lactiflora cultivar, and the
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I had the chance to see a couple of plants of this variety in full bloom a few days ago, and I’ll have to say, I can’t remember seeing a more charming peony plant. The flowers were smallish, but that didn’t make much difference, given how strikingly attractive it was, with the flowers sitting altogether at the same height on the top of the plant. I’m not sure how long the flowers on the plant will stay looking good, maybe just a few days ? But seeing this unusually variety made a real impression on me, when it was fresh and looking good.
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Bob wrote a new post
Notes on the Importance of early Spring Growth.
As I am never tired of mentioning, here on the high desert, spring frosts are a regular issue. We get numbers of them every year without fail, and while they -
Notes on the Importance of early Spring Growth.
As I am never tired of mentioning, here on the high desert, spring frosts are a regular issue. We get numbers of them every year without fail, and while they don’t always kill flower buds, they can effect the carpals in ways so they won’t produce seeds. Last spring I tried an experiment : I did…Read More
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khurtekant commented on the post, Pink double fernleafs
That may take a while. The article was originally written in 2013 and offers the description of the flowering plants then (which had at the time not yet been named). Those were all plants of which there was only
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khurtekant wrote a new post
Paeonia tenuifolia, also known as the fernleaf peony, is a very different peony species with lots of finely divided narrow leaflets. Most readers may know the wild form, which is a single red, or the cultivated
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khurtekant wrote a new post
Fun it may be to always discuss those new advanced hybrids, but they tend to come at a price. Just look at this price comparison list that can be found on Adriana Feng’s very interesting website Southern Peonies.
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khurtekant wrote a new post
P. coriacea is a species which grows in the mountains in both the south of Spain (Sierra Nevada) and Morocco (the Rif and Mid-Atlas). Not too much information can be found, it is difficult to obtain and grow and
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“Blushing Princess’ children were on average far better than Pink Vanguard’s children with the same father. But in the end, the best plants were from Pink Vanguard x Lavender Baby as I had ten times as much plants to choose from. ”
This is a great article Koen. It’s always educational to hear about other’s hybridizing results. But in the end it can be as you said in your quote : More than the public may realize, rather than intrinsically being a matter of cleverness, hybridizing is often a numbers game.
We see a wonderful registered result from a cross, but we don’t see all of the others from that very same cross that were duds. Growing many seedlings from the same cross may be the brute-force method it’s true, but that’s often what it takes to get a pleasing result.
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I’m sorry to hear about the pest problems you had ! Botrytis can be a difficult thing to deal with. Is it in the old stems, is it lurking in the soil ? Has it made it’s way down to the crowns ? Aside from good hygiene, I suspect that a person has to spray. And spray preventively, before any symptoms show up. Not something anyone looks forward to.
The issue with bad bud covers is an interesting one. And I’ve heard that for some registered varieties, it becomes more of an issue the older the plants become. It may have to do with early season temperatures, but it may have to do with other factors as well. We selected a number of seedlings several years ago, from plants in seedling blocks that appeared to be mature. We dug them and planted them again from the resulting divisions, and two years later when it was time to do further selection, we were wondering why in the world we had ever kept them, because of the poor bud covers they had. This seemed to have to do with the plants being older, because they had looked fine when we first selected them. One would think it would be more of an issue with flowers that are double, but less-double flowers can have short bud covers too.
Established varieties like Old Faithful can have poor looking bud covers as well, but somehow they develop just fine, so I’m not sure that poorly covered buds is always the kiss of death, but it’s something one would rather not see, that’s for sure.
Bob Johnson