Gary, Shawn, Anya, Ruthanna, beautiful divisions! You guys are going to have some great varieties popping up next year.

Liz and Anya, good luck with the plants from the Netherlands. The late shipping time always makes me anxious and this year looks like it will be no exception. My peony partner up north received plants on Halloween last year and was planting in the snow. Good thing she had the foresight to pre-dig her holes and store the soil in the basement to backfill! I've heard that recent heat may have delayed harvesting a bit in Holland this year. I truly hope you all remain unaffected by this!

Here are some outstanding divisions I received from Parkland Peonies. Unfortunately they are not shipping to the U.S. this year. Lots of eyes, very tidy divisions, and massive taproots. I also received a bonus division of Nosegay. Does anyone still practice this? I used to see freebies thrown in back when I started doing the whole mail order thing about a decade ago, but for the life of me I cannot remember the last time I received an extra division at no charge. I was so pleased with this experience and happy to see Adam and his team carry on Bob Yaremko's legacy and represent Alberta grown peonies in a big way.





I went for Kansas, Pink Spritzer, Nancy Nora, White Innocence, and Nosegay was included at no charge. Fantastia and Sugar n' Spice also arrived as they were donated by Parkland to the Canadian only portion of the APS auction.

I'm attending a peony workshop today in NJ, the morning session was about dividing herbaceous so i'll be taking these unknowns home and I bought

Lois' Choice
Marie Crouse
Prince of Darkness

I also got my Solaris order and need to take photos

This afternoon we are grafting tree peonies.

These aren't new, but they are my first wave of 2 year old peonies grown in bags. I have kept Raspberry Sundae x 2 and The Fawn x 3 bagged for 2 years and this fall I am dividing them and planting them in the soil.

Here is a Raspberry Sundae in a 5 gallon grow bag prior to recovery:


A bit closer, six stems:


Recovered and the next step is a washing:


Washed and now resting for a few hours. Once relaxed, I'll divide the roots.


As you can see, the roots basically maintain an even round shape. They have air trimmed about an inch from the wall of the bag, so a nice diameter and good depth is important if you are going to leave a peony bagged for a long time.

I also suspect that the root density is higher than a field grown peony since the plant have a smaller area to work with. They look like they'll be difficult to divide. (The Fawn had a higher root density than Raspberry Sundae - it was actually difficult to wash them as they would not release the light soil very readily.)

EDIT: I should mention that the starter roots for these were the very modest, dried-out inexpensive sort that one can get for under $20.

Top

Very cool Sulli! I hope to be able to take a grafting class sometime!

Thanks for all the pics, Top. It's very interesting that they air prune.

I look forward to seeing how many divisions you get from these.

The 5 plantings ended up making 17 divisions - 8 from the two Raspberry Sundae plants and 9 (3 each) from three The Fawn plants. The root density was very nice on all of them and it was almost all new, vigorous root material.

I also have a happy accident - a very small single eye piece that broke loose during planting. I was working in some rain and was just going too fast.

Tim

So do you think that the grow bags are an efficient way of increasing your rootstock? They certainly look very vigorous, and it's so nice not to have to dig the clumps!

Did you get them planted in the garden beds now?

In envy of the grafting class, Sulli! Looks like you got some nice roots too, great score! I've always wanted to attend a grafting class, one of these days. Think I'll try air layering if I have any suitable stems this spring, some of those in grow bags this year were really large so there is hope!

Top, I'll be transplanting a lot of the peonies I have in grow bags this fall, really hope I have roots that look like yours! Thanks for the pics, they're very encouraging!

Solaris delivery


Some mixed photos to show examples of the larger selections and the normal selections:
Two or three may not have been as large as the rest but still good in size, and many seemed just as or almost as large as the larger selections some being huge, many again this year already have some own roots and some still have green showing from the leaf stem cuts, very fresh!

Sadly Duchess De Morny had to be refunded for crop failure, even more so cause I feel that one will be more rare to have another chance at in the future, but 1 out of so many roots, I truely am very happy about the order once again this year, and so excited for spring!

Zi Hai Yin Bo Larger


Eternal Spring Larger


Tethys Larger


Aquila


Hana Daigin


Benikasane

Adelman's delivery
Another year of very large roots from Adelman's!

Door County Sunset


Seidai


Ofuji-Nishiki


Shimano Fuji


Joanna Marlene

Wonderful roots, David! Your Solaris order looks like mine last year, I got over 20 woody peonies from them last year! Cut it in half this year….

Top, what a nice return on investment! It's interesting to see how fibrous those roots get in grow bags but it looks like you have some nice taproots to work with and overall the plants look better than I would have expected. They look like a breeze to divide!

Here's the latest box from En Fleurs. Great looking plants from Kate Lynn. Many of them were big enough to split into two. It's great to see that Lindsay D'Aoust's collection lives on. I sprang for Rose Noble, Sanctus, Night Watch, Fantastia, Promenade, Sunny Day, Prosperity Maud, and Kathy's Touch.



After 7 - 10 days at customs, Adelman, Solaris, and Hollingsworth are now in my city. Can't wait to see what this week brings.

New roots arrived last week from Fina Gardens and Solaris Farms. It's my first time ordering from Fina, and while I only ordered one plant, I am pleased with what they sent. Large roots from Solaris.

Fina Gardens
Little Corporal (Seidl/Bremer 2013)


Solaris Farms
Big Boy (Pehrson/Hollingsworth 2000)
Dreamtime (Seidl/Bremer 2013)
Folk Art (Laning/Hollingsworth 2012)
Moonrise (Saunders)
Rabbie (Seidl/Bremer 2016)
Touch of Class (Klehm, RG 1999)

Wow David! They all look great!! Now you have the hard work of getting them planted.

Nick, your divisions from En Fleur look amazing. I got two orders from D'AOUST peonies before she retired. I treasure them all.

I did get a notification that my Solaris order is on its way. I'm going to take some vacation days to try to get caught up on my Fall planting.

I did buy one of those Power Planter
auger system with the heavy duty drill with the clutch. I have planted some Japanese irises with it already and it worked great. I will let you know how it work for digging larger holes for peonies. Liz cautioned me that several people have broken their wrists using the augers, so I am taking it slow.

I ordered a lot of fall planted items because I will retire in February, but combined with cleaning up from the flood I got worried that I wouldn't get everything planted, so I bought the Power Planter.

Gorgeous roots, Greg, with a very nice selection. Can't wait to see pics of blooms!!

Great looking roots, Nick and Greg! Can't wait to see next spring's pics!

Haven't gotten any other mail notifications except foe Old House Gardens. I have 2 coming from them, they're sending them straight to AL week of the 18th so they should get there just after we arrive!

Liz,

Old House Gardens is located in Ann Arbor (nearby). I believe that they recently moved from main street in A2 to Superior township, still in A2 but not in the downtown area. I do not know where they get their peonies (or other heirlooms), but I would be interested in from where your package was shipped.

Several years ago they contacted me to ask if they could come out to take a photo of my 'Early Scout' for their catalog. Apparently, they had seen my Flickr photos. I agreed, but I forgot to check their catalog for the photo. By the time I thought about it, they no longer carried the plant:)

Wow, all those roots look so good! Congrats everyone!!

My Brooks garden order just came! I didn't even remember ordering from them until I got the shipping notification. I think one of you convinced me to stay up on New Year's Eve for the catalog.

Rose heart:


Bess Bockstoce - a little soft and spongy, will need to get this in the ground ASAP.

Frank, their peonies are imports, here's a screen snap of the email letting me know they're not in yet

Mieko2 said:So do you think that the grow bags are an efficient way of increasing your rootstock? They certainly look very vigorous, and it's so nice not to have to dig the clumps!

Did you get them planted in the garden beds now?

It is really handy to not need to dig them up, but you do get to move them quite a bit I lugged these peonies around a lot, but I'm happy with the results. Once divided, I did plant them out in the garden.

None of the roots that were initially planted were large or in especially good condition. I think that bagging is a good way to go for weaker roots, such as these, and also for expensive/rare peonies where you wish to protect your investment OR want to insure that they get off to a strong start. My current collection of bagged plants are singletons (peonies that I only have one of), fragments that may not be successful without some special care, and higher dollar plants such as itohs.

I've got 4 or 5 itoh varieties that I'm trying to grow in bags, but I think that the size of the itoh's root system will be a bit much for a 2 year run. We'll see - I've got quite a few bagged up right now.

LizinElizabeth said:Top, I'll be transplanting a lot of the peonies I have in grow bags this fall, really hope I have roots that look like yours! Thanks for the pics, they're very encouraging!

I hope you get the same or better, Liz!

NMay said:Top, what a nice return on investment! It's interesting to see how fibrous those roots get in grow bags but it looks like you have some nice taproots to work with and overall the plants look better than I would have expected. They look like a breeze to divide!

They were not as difficult to divide as I had expected, Nick. I'm slowly improving my division game - slowing down and pulling on a few roots makes a big difference. I do expect the resulting divisions to do really well - they have some root mass and have a lot of smaller roots coming on.


Top

What soil mix are you using in your bags, Top? I found that I don't like potting mix at all, mix of the bulk raised bed mix and vermiculite seems to anchor the roots better. The potting soil shifts too much when I have to move the bags. Have your results been the same or did you find tormenting else that you liked better?