Scottish Rock Garden Club Forum

Seedy Subjects! => Grow From Seed => Topic started by: shelagh on September 03, 2014, 07:24:26 PM

Title: Tree Peony Seed and how to treat it?
Post by: shelagh on September 03, 2014, 07:24:26 PM

My tree Peony 'High Noon' has had a lovely seedhead on it and today the segments have started to open.  Thinking about the Seed Exchange is there anything special I should do with this seed, or is it just OK to bag it and send as I would do usually?

Title: Re: Tree Peony Seed and how to treat it?
Post by: Maggi Young on September 03, 2014, 07:48:05 PM

Don't see why that won't work, Shelagh.  :D

.....waits for someone from 'Seedy Gang' to chip in........  ;)

Title: Re: Tree Peony Seed and how to treat it?
Post by: Growild on September 04, 2014, 07:47:34 AM

Hello Shelagh

Remove the seedhead and leave to dry out. Remove the seeds when the segments have fully opened. Leave the seeds to dry a week then bag up as normal.

Title: Re: Tree Peony Seed and how to treat it?
Post by: shelagh on September 04, 2014, 08:23:41 AM

Thank you Lisa and Maggi.  I was a little surprised when I peeked into one of the segments, I was expecting much bigger seeds like species paeonies.

Title: Re: Tree Peony Seed and how to treat it?
Post by: Growild on September 04, 2014, 09:14:38 AM

Hope they are not immature seeds Shelagh (if you have a camera please post an image once out of pods). As I grow only species I can't comment if cultivars produce smaller seed ... but I'm sure someone else can advise.

Title: Re: Tree Peony Seed and how to treat it?
Post by: GordonT on September 04, 2014, 11:39:50 PM

Seeds of tree peonies (species and hybrids) ought to be at least the size of peas. Some pods may form and be filled with much smaller sterile seeds. Cricket Hill Garden has quite a good blog post about Peonies from seed:
http://crickethillgarden.wordpress.com/2011/08/03/starting-peonies-from-seed/ (http://crickethillgarden.wordpress.com/2011/08/03/starting-peonies-from-seed/)

Title: Re: Tree Peony Seed and how to treat it?
Post by: shelagh on September 05, 2014, 06:33:08 PM

This is the best I can do, it doesn't look promising after having read the contributions of the last 2 forumists.

Title: Re: Tree Peony Seed and how to treat it?
Post by: Garden Prince on September 07, 2014, 06:54:00 AM

No, these seeds are not fertile. They should be the size of a big pea and firm, not shriveled.

I don't have a good picture of tree peony seed but I have one of germinating tree peony seed in a ziplock bag where you can vaguely see the seeds

Title: Re: Tree Peony Seed and how to treat it?
Post by: Growild on September 07, 2014, 09:15:48 AM

So sorry Shelagh to see your photo and that the seeds are no good for you this year  :(

Coming to think of it I'm sure I've read somewhere that some cultivars do not produce fertile seed?

Title: Re: Tree Peony Seed and how to treat it?
Post by: shelagh on September 08, 2014, 12:57:53 PM

Thanks Lisa and Garden Prince, good to know.

Title: Re: Tree Peony Seed and how to treat it?
Post by: samsgarden on September 11, 2014, 09:22:31 PM

Hopefully you get good seed formation next year.  I have two seedlings several years old from 'High Noon' tree peony.  I remember how happy I was to see my first peony seed germinate!  Hopefully they will flower in the next three years to see if they are 'true' and not crosses.