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Peonies

(22 Posts)
jura2 Wed 05-Jun-19 14:48:20

just love them- Spring came late this year, but it is boiling now, 33C at lunchtime- Eastern France much hotter than the SW and Spain, which is a rare occurence.

When we moved here 10 years ago- there were a few 'standard' deep red peonies in the weedy border. Borders have been enlarged and weeded, and the peonies I brought from UK have all settled, has have the new ones I purchased or begged in the meantime. My absolute pride though, are the two tree peonies are brought from our UK garden- one is very large now- deep puce enormous flowers with yellow centre- it has about 30 flowers on at the mo. And another smaller one that only flowered last year for the first time, beautiful soft pink and has 8 flowers this year. A third has white flowers, only 5, but only bought in France 3 years ago. The 4th has never flowered yet- and have forgotten what colour it is- will be a nice surprise when it does. The perennial ones, about 12, all doing well too- some will flower a bit later, which is great.

blondenana Wed 05-Jun-19 14:57:57

I love peonies too, i have in my garden, they always remind me of my grandmothers garden which was awash with peonies. roses, over an arch, and Hydrangeas,amongst other beautiful flowers,
The weather sounds lovely, my eldest son lives in Spain and they are having good weather too
Wish it was the same here, some parts of the country have had heat,with sun, but here it has been hot but muggy not mucg sun as yet

jura2 Wed 05-Jun-19 15:03:58

Never came across tree peonies until late quite late... first time was at a lovely house in Leicester called Belgrave Hall- they have superb large specimen. After that, I always looked for them. Lucky that DD1 lives near RHS Wisley, so have been so many times, and they have amazing ones too, same with so many Stately Homes - like Coton Manor in Northants we visited again recently.

gillybob Wed 05-Jun-19 15:07:42

I moved a beautiful peonie 2 years ago as it was in the complete wrong place. It did nothing last year except sprout some leaves but I have noticed quite a few buds this year so hopefully it is happy again. I think it will be a few weeks before I see any flowers though as I live in the North East very close to the sea.

Nannyxthree Wed 05-Jun-19 15:40:05

Mine must be a different variety as it has already bloomed and finished for this year. A creamy yellow colour. Don't know the name as we were given it as a cutting.

jura2 Wed 05-Jun-19 16:28:53

gilly and Nanny- are the herbaceous or tree?

gillybob Wed 05-Jun-19 17:02:51

Oh dear you’ve got me there jura would I know by looking at it ? Is it the size ? Or the fact that it dies back and starts over again the next spring? Mine is just over 3 feet in height . But I think it was much bigger before I moved it .

Ginny42 Wed 05-Jun-19 17:23:34

My gorgeous tree peony has bloomed already but it blew over in a storm and I lost a whole stem. Waiting to see how is recovers. It has huge bright pink flowers.

I transported a lovely soft pink peony from a house, to my sister's garden and finally to here when I bought this house. It has lots of buds on and I've staked it to hold up the weight. I put in 3 new ones two years ago, very healthy foliage but only one has buds on. Perhaps they need another year to acclimatize. They make a striking feature of any garden.

gillybob Wed 05-Jun-19 17:53:45

Not very good photos and as I said not nearly as good as before I moved it but plenty of buds on it.

Nannyxthree Wed 05-Jun-19 17:56:54

Mine is definately a tree. From Gilly's photo I would say hers looks more like a shrub variety.

gillybob Wed 05-Jun-19 17:58:54

Yes I think you’re right Nannyxthree . Nowhere near as big as it used to be though. I’ve orobably stunted its growth by moving it .

dragonfly46 Wed 05-Jun-19 18:02:27

I have a beautiful white peony tree which is over now. It had about 30 flowers. I also have about 6 other types.

crazyH Wed 05-Jun-19 18:05:50

Peonies are beautiful, but they don't last long, or rather, mine don't....

PamelaJ1 Wed 05-Jun-19 18:39:18

We have both types and I cut the flowers now and have them indoors so I can make the most of them.
There really haven’t been many evenings so far when we could really enjoy them outside.
Our yellow tree peony was really knocked back by a very cold night but has rallied and we hope for some beautiful blooms soon.

jura2 Wed 05-Jun-19 19:28:53

love peonies in bouquets indoors- but always put on a pretty tray to catch all the petals as they drop.

Weather has been boiling here, but it suddenly got all dark, thunder and much needed heavy rain - let's hope that won't be the end the peonies in flower for this season. Plenty of others in bud to enjoy later.

Nannyxthree Wed 05-Jun-19 19:45:06

Our shrub peony hasn't flowered yet, but from experience if I cut the blooms they will have dropped completely within 48 hours. I've got some from the supermarket which claim to last for five days. Day two so far and looking good.

Callistemon Wed 05-Jun-19 20:44:17

We have some lovely shrub peonies of various colours out now, I particularly like the deep pink ones which are very old.
If you wait until they die back and then move the tubers, they should transplant successfully, gillybob.

I had a tree peony but lost it, however a friend has one and sometimes gives me some flowers.
I noticed that the flowers of the yellow tree peony smell rather odd (unpleasantly so), so if my friend gives me any I put them in a jar on the outside table.

CanadianGran Wed 05-Jun-19 21:36:04

Mine haven't started blooming yet. We are quite far north, so our season is quite late.

I have 5 different shrub peonies, The best bloomers so far are the Sarah Bernhardt and Bowl of Beauty. The latter has bright pink petals with a yellow center. But they are all around 5-7 years so really just babies. Peonies can live as long as humans.

I absolutely love a vase of fresh peonies indoors!

jura2 Wed 05-Jun-19 21:39:00

Got a bowl of Beauty- only about 4 years old but doing very well- it does flower quite a bit later.

jura2 Tue 11-Jun-19 21:37:37

The massive tree peony flowers, 1 deep red, 1 white and 1 soft pink - have had to suffer heavy rain last few days- poor things.

Luckygirl Tue 11-Jun-19 22:26:23

Mine is in bud. It was here when I came and is planted under a poplar-type tree (yuk) and I suspect that the tree steals all the water. But it does seem to survive.

jura2 Fri 14-Jun-19 21:55:30

Had to dead head the massive tree peony flowers, apart from a few late buds. Some of the herbaceous peonies are in flower now, all the deep red ones- but thank goodness the pink ones all flower quite a bit later.

Iris, both Germans and Sibiricas are in flower- and the Euphorbia Fireglow is amazing- with all the rest just about reddy to pop as soon as the sun comes out again. Niece and daughter coming from UK on Sunday- so hope for good weather to be back on its way.