Paeonia TOW - Part 1
Jane McGary (Fri, 30 Jul 2004 09:38:43 PDT)

Jim Waddick wrote,

assumptions: 1) that this is an introduction to the whole genus and 2) that
garden peonies are not widely grown in western gardens.

Well, if the West Coast consists mostly of Los Angeles and environs (an
opinion held by many East Coast persons), then that may be true. However,
almost any garden worthy of the name in the Pacific Northwest contains at
least one peony, and in my Oregon county alone we have three major peony
nurseries. Furthermore, stock I have purchased from them has been much less
disease-affected than stock bought from Midwestern nurseries. Even farther
to the south, I recall my relatives in Lodi, California, northeast of San
Francisco Bay, growing peonies, and I've seen them around houses in the
Sierra Nevada foothills. Apparently you just have to pick varieties that
don't need a deep winter chill -- and winter temperatures in northern and
inland California are routinely at least as cold as in much of England.

I haven't grown P. brownii, but if I had it I would put it in a slightly
shaded part of the bulb frame. I have heard of it being grown in the Czech
Republic.

In my own garden I have many species peonies, mostly grown from seed
collected over the years by Josef Halda. Josef told me to keep the young
plants in slightly shaded sites, and they are indeed healthier under that
condition than if planted in full sun. Apparently mature plants can take
more sun, but many species spend all their lives in scrub and light
woodland. All my peonies are in parts of the garden that receive a bit of
summer irrigation.

Among the woody peonies that Jim discussed in the first part of his
introduction, I like the large form of P. lutea known as "ludlowii" to
gardeners. I was given a seedling of this years ago by Margaret Mason of
Portland, a great gardener now departed. My original plant is now quite
large, and its seedlings have popped up here and there. The seeds, which
are huge, must be moved around by animals, since one seedling is in the
woods about 50 meters from the parent plant. I also have a little colony of
P. delavayi, which spreads stoloniferously in the shade of some Styrax and
Cercis trees; its emerging red foliage is pretty in spring, and I've been
told the flowers of this plant are large for the species. Both these shrubs
are rather ugly in winter, since the old pedicels and leaves tend to hang
on like rotting rags to the awkward woody stems. Many kinds of bulbs can be
grown under woody peonies; under P. delavayi, for instance, I have a carpet
of pale blue Puschkinia, which is pretty with the beginnings of the red
foliage, and there are clusters of yellow erythroniums under one P. lutea,
and many Cyclamen hederifolium under another.

Jane McGary
Northwestern Oregon, USA