Paeonia mascula
Jane McGary (Thu, 07 Apr 2011 08:51:37 PDT)

It's puzzling that Mary Sue Ittner, on the northern California coast,
would lost Mediterranean Paeonia species in the garden. As far as I
know, nothing eats the roots. They are subject to Botrytis and
perhaps other diseases.

I grew Paeonia mascula in a couple of forms for many years in my
previous garden (the large plants are still there, and about to
flower, as I saw Tuesday when I was out there cleaning up a bit).
They have also self-sown. When Josef Halda was collecting wild
Paeonia seed a lot I bought quite a few species and had them in
various parts of that garden, particularly on the east side of a
large shrub border, since Josef told me that when young these plants
do best in part shade. Last year I dug and potted quite a few of my
species peonies and brought them to my new garden. Most of them
survived the move and I'm happy to see some of my favorites emerging
with buds now. I don't know how they'll handle the clay soil here but
I put them on a fairly steep bank that has a bit leafier soil than
the flatter parts of the lot. I saw that some of the plants I dug are
coming back in their original sites from roots I missed; some kinds
of peonies will do this, others not.

The single flowers of species Paeonia don't last as long as the
garden hybrids' flowers but they're very welcome in early spring, and
the foliage is good all summer. As Mary Sue mentioned, germination is
slow; the plants have hypogeal germination, meaning they make a
radicle (initial root) the first season and then put their first leaf
above ground the second season. However, it's well worth the wait. I
keep my seedling plants in 6-inch pots until they have been above
ground for two years, then plant out the roots when the leaves wither
in fall. You need to keep the crowns near the soil surface.

Another thing I would mention about Paeonia seed is that it has a lot
of moisture in it. When I was doing the intake phase of the NARGS
seed exchange in the mid-1990s, I noticed that donations including
Paeonia sometimes had mold problems because of moisture from the
Paeonia seeds affecting the whole package. Wrapping the big seeds in
waxed paper would help prevent this.

Jane McGary
Portland, Oregon, USA

At 07:40 AM 4/7/2011, you wrote: