I have several peony plants started from seed that I have been watching develop over a few years, They come up every year but up till now have grown slowly and produced no flowers. This year one of them has come back looking more robust and bearing this one huge flower bud.( My hand is in there for a sense of scale.) I'm excited to see what this produces when it opens and also a bit nervous that it will be a disappointment after all the years of anticipation.
Come with me on the experience of discovery.
Interesting. The peonies that grow around my part of the hundred-acre wood start out with the petals all wrapped tight in a ball. They gradually open, unfurl with the help of ants.I'll have to take a picture of ours to show you if you haven't seen this variety before.
@skipt07 I think the ones you are describing are what we call 'garden peonies' or 'herbaceous peonies'.
The bud here is from a tree peony. The garden peonies die right down to the ground every year and send up new shoots each spring. The tree peonies maintain a woody structure over the winter and bud off those branches.
@gardencat - It seems you are very knowledgeable about flowers. You are absolutely right. They are tubers and they die down. Are the tree variety a warmer climate variety?
@skipt07 Not really knowledgeable about flowers in general but several years ago I fell in love with peonies so since then I've learned a bit about them.
The tree peonies, on the whole, survive in about the same zones as the garden peonies do and, in fact, they need a period of cold weather in order to set blooms (under 40 degrees F for about a week at a minimum, is what I've heard). They don't mind a fair amount of cold and frost.
The bud here is from a tree peony. The garden peonies die right down to the ground every year and send up new shoots each spring. The tree peonies maintain a woody structure over the winter and bud off those branches.
Here's one of our garden peony buds and the ants, you mentioned. busy around it.
https://365project.org/gardencat/365/2019-05-30
The tree peonies, on the whole, survive in about the same zones as the garden peonies do and, in fact, they need a period of cold weather in order to set blooms (under 40 degrees F for about a week at a minimum, is what I've heard). They don't mind a fair amount of cold and frost.