Hi Allison, it looks to me that you might have a herbaceous sucker growing up beside your tree peony. Most tree peonies are started (those that are most common out there for us to buy, anyway) by grafting a tree peony stem onto a herbaceous root. If the tree peony graft takes the new plant eventually grows roots and the herbaceous root just slowly rots away. Most of the time that's going to happen in the first few years--yours looks more established. If that truly is the case herbaceous peonies are more robust that tree peonies--they grow faster, anyway, and will eventually crowd out the tp and it'll fail. If this is caught early the herbaceous growth can be pinched out and it should stop putting up new sprouts. I think the only thing you can do now is dig up the entire thing and pull apart the roots.

As for your original question about positioning, tree peonies can take much more shade than herbaceous peonies can. If the current position offers it protection from harsh winds and blowing snow during the winter I'd say that outweighs the shade issue and I'd leave it there. If that position is not protected I'd move it to a different side of the house and try to get it a few more hours of sun or dappled shade at worst.

If you decide to dig it up and pull them apart there was a discussion on this forum a few years ago when a member did that exact thing--pretty sure he posted some good pics as well. It is a lot of labor as the roots get pretty extensive but well worth it as your plants will be healthier apart. I'm not an expert on tree peonies, only have 10 or so right now in my mostly herbaceous collection, so hopefully someone like graycrna4u will pop in and make a suggestion. You might want to pop out there and make sure what I THINK I'm seeing in the pics is correct--what looks to be 2 completely different types/size/color of leaves, both coming from slightly different locations below ground and not from the same stem.

Hm. Wow, I never thought of that. I was told that the yellow leaves were probably from iron chlorosis.

Unfortunately, I don't really know when it was planted. The earliest it could have been planted is 1990 and the latest is 2012. I would guess that it was closer to 2005 or so.

I tried to take a closer look but it's still proving difficult to tell.

There is a stem that's growing in front of the rest that has only been growing the large green leaves.

But then, this branch seems like it may have both large green and yellow leaves.

No worries, I appreciate all the information. Also, it's good to be aware of potential problems at the very least.

I will look into having the soil tested. The area is underneath a particularly active bird feeder most of the year. I thought that might contribute to more organic matter from all the seed hulls and such. Still, the area toward the sun room (about 2-3ft from tree peony) seems to have poor drainage for some reason. It's something that I will continue to investigate though.

Oh, also, is the fact that it's next to the spigot for the hose likely problematic? I was surprised that there wasn't any powdery mildew on it because I have it on all of the herbaceous peonies in our yard.

All of the trees around it continue to grow of course but the main ones are deciduous.

I wish I knew how it bloomed earlier this year but I moved to the house again in mid to late May and I barely remember. There is only one seed pod that I remember seeing though so that's probably not a good sign.

You said I can decide next Spring if it's blooming ok, would I still wait until the fall to move it if I make that decision?

Fall is the best time to move them and that one looks pretty large--probably wouldn't be a good idea to move it any other time unless absolutely necessary. It's possible there were more seed heads but they were pruned off--pretty normal practice to keep peonies looking nice after blooming.

Again though, I'm not an expert on tree peonies, I've actually never dug one of mine up and moved it. I'd feel better if you got more opinions so here's the web address of a more active peony forum, I've seen several people on it on the last couple of days who can offer more first hand experienced advice! http://garden.org/forums/view/peonies/

Just as a precaution take one of the lower branches and nick it lightly with a knife. Allow to air dry for about a half hour. Then pile soil on top of the branch. With luck by next summer you can cut the branch off the parent plant and have a young plant to place elsewhere. This will delay moving it until next year but hopefully the parent plant will have bloomed by then and you will know what color it is. My Leda has that coloration in two of my three plants. They are all planted separately so it is not the same soil. That coloration in most plants is iron deficiency. The peony should be starting to go dormant and loose its leaves but adding fertilizer is a good idea but wait until after the leaves drop. You do not want it to start sending out new growth.

Thanks for sharing a comment, maifleur! I was afraid I was the only one giving advice and I don't know that much about tree peonies....

I used to have more than 50 of various types of tree peonies. Through the years from one cause or the other I think I am down to about 25? I probably need to do a walk through and recount.

My collection is slowly growing, will have 27 after all of this fall's acquisitions make it in....

I wanted to share pictures of the tree peony in bloom this year. It's been tricky because we've been getting a ton of rain lately. The blooms just started opening (maybe yesterday or the day before) and I tried to take some pictures while the sun peeked out.

Just a hint about photography. Most plants photograph better on cloudy days or light overcast. Strong sunshine reflects too much light back at the camera to obtain a clear picture.

Peonies can be neglected for years and still produce and look wonderful! I was stationed in Korea in 1986 and saw them growing in the medians of roads, blooming like crazy....also visited a garden last year during the APS convention that had been forgotten and neglected for years before someone in the neighborhood recognized them and did research to figure out where they came from.

The leaves look much healthier from what I can tell, did you do anything to it? I assume the landscaping paver is from Maifleur's advice, trying to get the branch to root. Please let us know if it was successful. Congratulations on your pretty tree peony!

Actually, all I did was work the soil around it. I think the landscaping paver is from one of my dad's projects. Moving everything that used to surround it and working the soil seemed to be enough.
Now, I didn't get a chance to see it bloom last year so I don't know if it's better or worse. Since my dad didn't notice it though, I can't imagine that it bloomed quite so well.