? starting a peony tree

I have a peony tree that's been at my home for years. I want to start new ones but am unsure how to. I've got the pods off of it from last year but I've heard I need a piece of the root. Which is right? And if I need root clippings- how do I take them? This tree is very special to us and I don't want to damage it!

Hi Tinya, you will wait about ten years before your seed germinate and grow to any size worth planting, tree Peonies are normally grown onto root stock now-a-days, but maybe that's just over here where I live, they come from China/Japan etc and are expensive to buy here, you are right to make sure you dont damage your tree, they have very fleshy roots and are easy damaged, so I would recommend you gently scrape away some of the soil from the base of the plant at the roots, get your watering can out after scraping and water the roots to remove some soil, this will show you the parts you want to cut of, you might see a large TUBER like swelling, dont cut into that, but above that you could see a nice healthy stem that shows a bit you could cut from the tuber, if you see this, then you need a really sharp knife, maybe like a Stanley knife you use for crafts, as you need a good clean cut so as not to damage the mother plant, or the new cutting, this cut off bit should have a bit of roots attached, do a clean cut if you can, then place this into a pot of sand/compost mix so it is well drained, you may need to add a cane for support, but if it is a tall stem, cut it down to above a good bud as too much top growth will cause the cutting to loose to much moisture, keep it indoors or in a sheltered part outside, out of strong sunlight but not dark shade either, water it well till you see new buds/shoots form, at the end of this summer/Autumn you can plant out into the garden where you want it to grow, or wait till next spring, dont plant out in the hot summer as there wont be enough roots for it to withstand the heat and it will never form roots and top growth. they like a slightly acidic soil to do well, but they are magnificent plants when happy, I have a few myself, they have taken a few years to reach flowering size so be patient, To help these trees flower well each year, it is a good idea to snap off the old flower buds as they loose there petals or all the plants energy goes into making seeds instead of good strong growth for the following year, the seeds dont come true from type as they are usually started from cuttings grafted onto root stock of the more wild plants that have good sturdy roots. the leaves are wonderful even after the flowers have faded too. good luck. WeeNel.

Tinya,

Depending on how big your tree peony is, it may be possible to divide it, but it would need to be a fairly large specimen. This should only be done in the fall after the plant is fully dormant. Grafting is the main means of propagating tree peony cultivars. You can learn more about grafting (although I must say that it is a fairly involved process) from the Canadian Peony Society www.peony.ca and the American Peony Society www.americanpeonysociety.org/. Also see this link for more info: http://www.peonies.org/grafting/ .

If you can get someone that has had experience grafting to help you, then that is your best bet.

You might also try sowing some of the seeds, just for fun. As noted above, they will not come true to name, unless it is a species tree peony. However, they can produce some lovely specimens, are very easy to grow, and will sometimes inherit desirable traits of the parent plants. Sow the seeds in fall about 1 cm or so deep in potting mix in a pot, say, 10 seeds to a squat gallon or so, water, set outside somewhere out of direct sun (it will dry the pots right out) or in a coldframe, keep it watered as needed (there is a root growing in there, so don't let it dry out), and in Spring, you should see nice shoots coming up! Move the pots into the sun in Spring in time for germination. It depends on the type, but they usually take about 4-5 years to flower. It's lots of fun to watch them grow!

The last thing that I can suggest is to post a photo of your tree peony (blooms, centre of flowers, foliage, entire plant) and see if we can try to identify the cultivar, in which case you could shop around for it. They can be quite reasonable when purchased bare root.

Hope that this helps,

-Plantenthusiast

Here is a photo of some of my own tree peony seedlings that have just germinated: