This is a nursery in Austrialia therefore they will be diging plants soon as this is their summer.

Leon, Chows have one I want, but I can't find any price or shipping charges--have you found any?

Cultivars available this year and prices are found at www.peonygarden.com.au/list.html.
Be aware the prices are in Australian Dollars not US dollars. You will have to have an import permit before you can import plants from foreign sources.

Here is a link that might be useful: Peony Garden's (Chow's) Pricelist

The new 2008 Khlem's Song Sparrow catalog is up!

Here is a link that might be useful: Khlem's Song Sparrow

Amulet,

Wow,
I just checked their website a few days ago and there was no change. Now they have several really interesting Daphnis tree peonies that are tempting me.

Thanks,

Leon, Why are you most interested in the Daphnis TPs?

I think the Daphnis tree peonies represent some of the most advanced tree peony breeding ever done. Daphnis picked up his work where Saunder's left off. He crossed peonies based on a desired goal rather than just "crossing this with that and see what we get". Even so, he registered a very small percentage of the tree peonies that he created because if a plant had any drawback at all he refused to register it. All of the cultivars that I have seen bloom are excellent flowering plants and I have not been disappointed in any of them. There are lots that I have never seen bloom.

I am trying to build a collection of his tree peonies. Many of them I have gotten by getting scions from friends that grow the plant but others I have purchased. I fear that some of his cultivars may have already been lost. One of those is Medea. Medea is an older registration (1980) and I have a feeling that someone probably has this plant growing in their yard. Nassos was a very generous person and gave a good many plants away. Many people don't keep up with their plant names so someone could have it and not really know it. Medea just is not available anywhere and the garden where Nassos Daphnis did his work has lost the plant they had.

Another tree peony of his that may be lost is Thermopylea. Some sources refer to this as a Gratwick peony but it was the registration of a Daphnis seedling.

I consider there to be 48 Daphnis registered tree peonies however two of those cultivars are argued as to wheather they are really registered or not.

Anyone out there by chance growing Oread, Rhea, Sappho or Thalia ?

Sorry Amulet if I seem to be a little overboard here but yeah, I do get excited about Daphnis peonies.

Hephestos[Nasso Daphnis, 1966]

Leon,

I don't grow any TPs right now, so I can't help you in your search. Good luck, though.

So how many of the 48 Daphnis varieties do you have so far?

That deep red-burgundy one is a very nice color. I would love to see your whole garden of TPs in bloom.

It seems that work based on Saunders usually turns out well. I have started to collect a few of Saunders hybrid herbaceous peonies. Right now I am interested in early bloomers and the ones with flares. I planted Athena (flares), Firelight (flares), Chalice (early), Roselette (early), and Ludovica (APS gold medal) this past fall. I can't wait to see them bloom.

amulet

Amulet,

So far I have 18 Daphnis cultivars. I made grafts of several cultivars that are looking good but counting those is like counting chickens before the eggs hatch.

You have a nice selection of Saunders peonies there. I grow Athena, Roselette and Ludovica but I have not tried Firelight or Chalice. They both sound like nice cultivars.

One of my favorite early peonies is the double fern-leaf peony (Paeonia tenuifolia rubra plena flora). It will bloom much earlier than the others and really makes a display. The color is such a dark red that it catches your attention from across the yard.

Here is a link that might be useful:

Leon,

18 out of 48. I guess you're more than a 3rd of the way there. Have they all bloomed for you? Of the Daphnis TPs Khlem's has listed Persephone seems very pretty, but pictures are not always exact representations.

I have tenuifolia rubra plena also, but it was such a small division when I got it, it hasn't bloomed yet. I planted it in fall 2006, and got to see the fern leaf foliage last year. I am hoping for some blooms from it this spring.

amulet

Amulet,

Yes, I feel that 18 is a good start. I have had several grafts that failed and I would be a lot farther along if I was better at grafting.

This past spring when we got the super spring freeze the week of Easter I lost grafts of 4 or 5 cultivars of Daphnis tree peonies that I dont have in my collection. That was a big disappointment.

I now have another 9 cultivars that I grafted last fall. Some of these are really looking good. It is exciting to see newly grafted plants sending their first bud to the surfase of the soil. I have the new grafts growing in pots which are stored in my unheated garage. I will keep them in pots until next fall when I set into the garden. What was that I said about counting chickens?

Persephone is a nice tree peony. It is one of the cultivars that I hope to get this year from Songsparrow Nursery. Appearantly Persephone is difficult to get to show good blooms. I have a friend who was located near Nassos Daphnis and was friends with him. Nassos gave him a plant of Persephone and some years later when Nassos saw the plant blooming he marvelled at the plant in bloom. Nassos said "Persephone, Persephone, I have never seen you so lovely". If you can get the plant to bloom it must really be a sight to behold.

Not all of my Daphnis tree peonies have bloomed. I had several that were set up for first bloom last spring but then the Easter freeze came. Hopefully those will bloom this spring. Persephone

Sorry about that message. It seems to carry a message of gloom, doom, and disappointment. Actually it was not meant that way. I am really enjoying my quest to obtain these tree peonies and I am overjoyed every time I see one bloom.

Leon

Leon,

I didn't take it that way. I can understand how dissapointing it is to lose a plant. Since many of my peonies are immature, I don't know whether I lost many blooms with that last spring freeze. Most of my established peonies seemed to bloom fine.

I have only tried to grow the Paeonia lutea TP, but it did die on me after about 1.5 years. It was very small, and I did not baby it. So that may be why it did not get established.

So for now I am focusing on herbaceous and intersectionals. I just got 3 of the intersectionals last fall, and one the previous fall. They are all so small, I am not expecting any blooms for a couple of years.

Were you able to put buckets over the most delicate TPs before the freeze? If so, did it help any of them?

amulet

Amulet,

I am really not sure what the problem with Paeonia lutea is. I have tried to grow it and kept it alive for maybe four years but it died in the spring freeze last year. Many people can't seem to keep the plant alive and may never see a bloom. My lutea bloomed the last 2 years. My plant was killed down to the ground every year but it would come up from the root. I tried to baby it and mulched it heavily.

I really would not recommend P. lutea as a garden subject. The blooms are only about the size of a half dollar and they are hidden inside the bush. It is a novelty in that it is a true yellow peony. When we were out in Oregon a few years ago we saw huge plants of P. lutea. I would guess those were 10-12 feet tall and 15 feet across. They just seem to like that climate.

I now have another lutea plant that I got last fall and for a starter plant it is very large. It stands 4 feet tall and has about 5 stems. I have it growing in a 35 gallon pot and hope I can get some bloom on it this year. This spring I have to get it moved from my garage to the outside; 35 gallons of dirt is really heavy. I plan to cross pollenate it using rocki pollen. That is assuming I can get a rock to bloom early enough to have pollen available. This may be a far reach but we will see. Of course I am not sure such a cross will take. We won't know unless someone tries. Wouldn't a true yellow rocki be amazing?

Leon

Leon:

I am curious. If you can only choose one, would be pick a yellow intersectional like Bartzella, Garden Treasure or would you choose a tree peony like Persephone, High Noon.
If it's hard to get Persephone to flower, should an amateur avoid it?

Thanks!

Again I have not grown Persephone. From what my friend said I don't think the problem was getting Persephone to flower but rather it was getting it to look good while it is in flower. So many things can affect bloom. The culprits here are wind, rain and heat.

Yeah, If I was choosing between Bartzella or Garden Treasure and a Lutea hybrid tree peony, without a doubt you will see many more blooms from one of those two intersectionals. The first year I had Bartzella I had 7 blooms. The second year there were 13 blooms. No tree peony is going to do that. It had grown so much by the end of the second year I felt I had to divide it. Intersectional peonies are extremely hard to divide if you let them get really big.

Leon