Paeonia 2023

[Gail]

Hooray! The peony season starts. First to open here this year is a tree peony - from seed sown 2017 as Paeonia decomposita. It has a good sweet fragrance.

[Stefan B.]

The first peony bloomed in my garden.

Paeonia daurica

[Palustris]

P. mascula ssp. russoi

[MarcR]

Palustris, Steven B., and Gail

Thank you all for the beautiful display.

Marc

[Peppa]

Nice to see everyone's peonies have started to bloom! My only bloom so far is P. caucasica from seeds sown in 2019 from a friend. It was supposed to have dark leaves (like the ones in the second picture), but it is still lovely!🥰 Others are still in bud, but variegated P. japonica has started to show nice leaves from the second year.

[ashley]

Hooray! The peony season starts. First to open here this year is a tree peony - from seed sown 2017 as Paeonia decomposita. It has a good sweet fragrance.
(Attachment Link)

I've never seen this one Gail.  Thanks for showing it

First in my garden is the altogether more common P. ludlowii which I like despite its eagerness to take over the world. 
P. cambessedesii also began this week but often struggles to open its flowers properly.  Maybe temperatures are too low or variable.

[Hans J]

Hi Ashley ,

please look here :
https://www.srgc.org.uk/forum/index.php?topic=376.msg10741#msg10741
https://www.srgc.org.uk/forum/index.php?topic=1690.msg43900#msg43900

I have posted there before many years pictures of my P.decomposita

My plants are still alive
Hans

[ashley]

Thank you Hans.  Yes I'd forgotten this & didn't do a search.

[ruweiss]

Paeonia ostii.
Paeonia Chamaeleon is interesting for changing the colors of thr flowers during
the flowering time. Not as quick like the fascinating reptile, but quite unusual nevertheless.
Wild bees and bumblebees love all the wild peonies for the big amount of pollen they produce.

[Maggi Young]

How cheering to see that your paeonies are flowering already, Rudi!  still too cold here  in Aberdeen and not much gowth on them yet.

[Stefan B.]

First bloom 

Paeonia tenuifolia


Paeonia officinalis 'Mollis'




Paeonia ostii 'Feng Dan Bai'

[Gail]

Lovely Stefan, and I like the green beetle on your Feng Dan Bai.
Some of mine;

Paeonia obovata


Paeonia tenuifolia


Paeonia rockii UK form (from Rivieres)


Paeonia ? 'Shima-nishiki'

[Gail]

We've had a lot of rain so my tree peonies are looking distinctly bedraggled but some pictures taken between showers;

Paeonia 'Shimadaijin' (Island Minister)


Paeonia 'The Captain's Concubine'


Paeonia 'Helene Martin' - an unusual hybrid tree peony by J Cayeux of France using P. potanini trolioides (P. delavayi) x 'Gessekai' - it has quite weak stems, so has suffered in this weather but is absolutely delightful as a cut flower...

[Peppa]

We will have temperatures above 80F this weekend and I'm afraid many flowers will fade quickly....

[Jürg P]

Here in the Basel region many peonies are already over. Also the only flower of 'Shima Nishiki' is over, which is the first flower after I bought it several years ago. As it had a small flower when I bought it, I knew that it is correctly labelled, as the flower already showed the red white mixture.
Gail, did yours always flowered only red or is it just the first flower after you got it?

Almost all tree peonies finished for this year its flowering except for P. delavayi. In the past years I have sown out many seeds of them and a collection of the different flower colours can be seen on my newly created Paeonia species website www.paeonia-species.com; the P. delavayi page with its different flower colours can be seen under: http://www.paeonia-species.com/Species/delavayi_fl_color__e.htm .
This paeonia species website is mainly based on the books "Peonies of the World" by HONG De-Yuan. Pictures of the species will follow (but as I do not grow/have all the species, some may remain without real pictures). I plan to add pictures over the next few months for those I could already make some decent pictures (due to a lot of rain, some did not provide good enough pictures so far).

I am also pasting some pictures of peonies here:
P. 'Shima Nishiki'
P. peregrina
P. 'May Music'