‘Blushing Princess’ parentage seems to bring good stems and larger plants with it, whatever it’s involved with. I’m seeing quite a few BP seedlings this year, and stem strength is a notable quality with many of them.

wow looks good

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.

“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.