Rose Heart and Bess Bockstoce are two different peonies. Both lovely in their own right.

I actually called Bannister and she said they manually adjust it and will email or call you with the new total. It confused me as well, because after loading my cart, there were no adjustments at checkout. She said it would have cost them a lot to make the changes occur at checkout, so manually adjusting them made more sense and saved them money, while still providing the discount.

Thanks for letting me know Lily!

I also thought that Rose Heart and Bess Bockstoce were different plants. However, when I was searching the web, looking at pictures for Rose Heart, Bess Bockstoce also came up, and in one case, it said AKA Bess Bockstoce.

Liz- I counted them- 82 new ones. WOW! I have plenty of space, but most of it is rented out and planted to corn or soybeans. The farmstead is about 9 acres, but mostly wooded. (That's why I have 500 hostas!) I have about run out of space that I feel gets enough sun for peonies to do well. I do have 4 peonies on order with Swensons:
Athena, Cytherea, Etched Salmon, Hillary. I also will be dividing a couple of self-seeded clumps that bloomed prolifically this summer, so I expect about a dozen divisions from them. I will end up with 69 named cultivars, and I have a few like Mons. Jules, of which I have multiple plants.

My find this week is probably a NOID,
but it is a Double White. I used to have a very nice double white, and I don't know what happened to it as it just quit one year. I had had it for many years.

Linda, open, sunny space is one of the few benefits of living on the Colorado plains! We are on a strip of land with fairly high underground water running across it in a fairly narrow swath so we do have probably 3 acres that are heavily treed with Ponderosa Pine. We can't take advantage of the fact that we have high underground water because we don't own the water rights, though.
Even with the new ones I added from Bannister's I should have enough room in existing beds to get all planted this fall without having to do a last minute new bed. This is the ONLY time I'm semi-glad my peonies don't increase as quickly as Karen's! I'm adding organic materials to the side of an existing bed to get a bigger area started for when I need to create more space between plants, though.
Does anyone here have both Bess Bockstoce and Rose Heart to compare/contrast the two? The Peony Database doesn't refer to Rose Heart in it's listing for Bess Bockstoce but does refer back to Bess in the Rose Heart listing. It also notes that there is a Canadian peony named Bess Bockstoce that is different from the Bockstoce introduced Bess Bockstoce /Rose Heart. Does anyone know if there is a Canadian listing that compares to the APS Peony Database? It'd be interesting to see what it lists for both.
It sure does get confusing...I accidently purchased a duplicate with President Taft and Reine Hortense, didn't find out they were supposed to be the same until after I had both planted. It's a pretty peony so I won't complain!

I also ordered from Bannisters and was confused at the pricing. Sent them an email. Should have read on further here to have gotten the correct info. I am soooo tempted to go back and order more. I placed a large order with Adelman's this summer for fall shipment. I am tempted to cancel a good part of them and then buy them from Bannisters.

Liz, I sure wish that all of my peonies multiply as fast as you said. It seems like the peonies that I wish would increase quickly do not increase at all or take painstakingly slow. Those that I do not care as much seem to grow out of their space too fast. Case in point is the Petite Elegance peony that I was planning to trade with you years back. It started out 2 stems and after 3 years has increased to only 4 stems. It just was not happy in its previous locations. Salmon Dream is another: 3 stems in its first year and still 3 stems in its second year. Mrs. FDR is another slow grower, so slow that I placed an order for another root of it with Bannister Gardens. Besides Mrs. FDR, I also ordered Myra Macrae, Princess Margaret, Adonis, Maestro, Madame Calot, Commando, Serene Pastel, Firelight, John Harvard, Lavender, Nosegay, Laura Magnuson. The Lavender peony I got from Country Flower Gardens last year bloomed this spring but it looked like a mislabel. So hopefully, the Lavender that I get from Bannister will be true to name.

I went to Hollingsworth website after I saw your list. OMG, they are offering a new yellow herbaceous peony that is so gorgeous, Early Canary for $120. It is light yellow when it first opens and then turns peachy buff as it ages as shown by their photos. It is fertile both ways too. I wonder if I should make it my Christmas gift! Yep, Christmas comes early for Karen has a nice ring to it.

There is a Canadian Peony Society.
Will have to check those on there.

There is no Canadian peony data base, but there is that bloom date listing in which case the bloom dates for Rose Heart and Bess Bocestoce are different. I wonder if that could not be used to distinguish them?

Interesting discussion, isn't it weird how there can be so much confusion about plants that are named and registered? It seems like there has to be 2 different flowers if they have 2 different bloom times. It sure would be interesting to plant the two side by side to see if they were the same or not. The only problem is you'd have to get them from the same vendor claiming that they were 2 different cultivars....has anyone seen them offered by the same grower?

I found this from a internet search of Canada peony Bess Bockstoce:
http://www.peony.ca/e_html/gal...

This is an excerpt from that page:
Rose Heart

This one time controversial variety was hybridized by William Bockstoce and introduced into commerce by Henry Landis in 1974. The controversy centred on the claim that it had been previously registered by Bockstoce in 1955 as 'Bess Bockstoce' and it was so known in the USA. However, in 2006 it was determined that 'Rose Heart' is the proper name and that the confusion had resulted due to a labelling error originating with the third party vendor from whom Allan Rogers obtained his initial stock in 1976 or 1977. The correction was officially published in the American Peony Society Bulletin in 2006.
hoto by Valda McKenzie, June 11, 2000.

If they are the same and all of the confusion was caused by a labeling error almost 40 years ago, wow. Makes you wonder how many others there are in the thousands of named peonies are the same plant with more than one name! I certainly don't compare internet pictures to the pictures of the peonies that bloom in my garden before I put them in my cart online; I see a picture of a peony I like, do a quick compare with the list of what I already have and hit the check-out button. Every now and then I'll refer back to the C.B Peony Database if I'm on a site I haven't bought from before but that's about all.

It would be neat if several people planted both of those, and also planted Red Charm under the same conditions. Then maybe the bloom dates would distinguish the two?

Liz thanks for taking the time to research the Rose Heart/ Bess Bockstoce issue! I thought I was losing my mind--- wait--- that was lost a long time ago😂

I do go to the web to look at different pictures when trying to decide if I like a plant. I'm just crazy that way I want to check the bloom size, height, color in different settings etc.

I'm working on doing a better job with color echoes, trying to put plants with similar colors together, or to get a nice contrast that accents surrounding plants.

I purchased something advertised as Bess Bockstoce not realizing that it was supposed to be the same as Rose Heart. I have Rose Heart, or what I've been calling Rose Heart, from another source from years ago. One of them is named wrong if they're supposed to be the same plant. What was sold to me as Bess Bockstoce was much less of a bright pink to start out and did not fade to the rosy middle with paler outside. Does that mean I have the Canadian version of Bess or do I just have another NOID full, lighter pink double?

Bess Bockstoce purchased from Swenson's fall 2013


Rose Heart, bloom from spring 2014. Didn't take a close-up of the flower this spring, only a shot of the plant from a bit further away. Don't remember who I got it from, was before I started labeling my peonies. Not even completely sure this is the root I bought as Rose Heart but the way it fades is pretty distinctive. Know I bought one of that name, this is the only one in my yard that fades this way, ergo--Rose Heart!




Rose Heart from this year. Lots of stem damage on this plant, none on Bess. Could be because of location and how much snow built up after our Mother's Day snow?


The one labeled as Bess Bockstoce is planted in full sun in a raised bed filled with planter's mix. The one labeled Rose Heart is planted in part morning shade, probably 20 feet from the north west corner of my house, in fill dirt/moved original soil from where our house sits. They're only probably 100 feet apart but the growing conditions are different. Judging from the dates on the pictures of both from this spring they bloomed the same week, Rose Heart's partial plant pic was taken on 17 June, close up of Bess Bockstoce on 16 June.

Wonder if a query put in to a reputable seller (like Swenson's) about the question on the duplicate names would shed more light or more confusion on the subject!

My pleasure, Annette! Anything to delay my house cleaning for the weekend! And I sometimes do the same thing, look for other pictures of plants that I think I'll like and research size/bloom time. It depends on whether I'm buying from a new source or from one I've grown to trust. I like it when a seller gives a lot of detailed info on the individual plant--hybridizer, bloom week or at least early/mid/late, whether it has side blooms and size. Those are the sellers I end up getting the majority of my plants from every year.

Further labeling errors occur when peonies hit the Netherlands. It is a familiar story that also happens with lilium once they go over for propagation. They either don't like the name or think they will sell more with a different name. It is frustrating for the buyer who is trying to have a collection with true named varieties. I also find it unkind to the hybridizer who came up with the plant and named it.
Without a DNA test, it will never fully be known.

What happens in the Netherlands? I really know nothing about the history of peonies, I just love the blooms, but if there's a history lesson in this I'd be interested. I can tell an Itoh from a tree from herbaceous but that's about as much as I know.....I agree that it's unkind to the hybridizer. They spend years growing hundreds or more plants from seed to get an interesting bloom, then more years propagating the promising ones before they're named and put out there for sale. Then to have their names changed as a marketing ploy? Crappy..

Has anyone ordered from the Tree Peony Garden in the past and can tell me about their experience? Did you get plants true to name? Blooming sized? Would you order again? I stick to my tried and true growers usually, but was considering an order. Any information would be helpful. Thanks!

I ordered from them this year and last. The ones I got last fall haven't bloomed yet but they looked really healthy and good sized for the price. The reason I bought from her is posts from graycrna4u showing the beautiful plants he got from there the previous fall, his bloomed 1st year. Hopefully he'll see this question and respond with more pictures!

Thanks Elizabeth. They do have a nice selection, but I always hesitate ordering from a place am not at all familiar with at all as far as true to name etc.