Its lucky tree peonies seldom try to bloom the first year after planting. Most authorities agree they need a season’s vegetative growth, a period of putting down roots and building a powerful woody framework before bearing their extravagant flowers—sound reasoning.
The reasoning is sound, but if a reckless youngster develops a bud, would you be cold-hearted enough to snip it off?
Planting Tamamidori
I should have decided when Tamamidori intended to flower in its first spring. Planted by direction with the graft 4” to 5” inches below soil level, only 3” inches of wood showed above ground.
This absurd stub produced a 2” inch stem which, presently, carried a bud the size of purple cabbage, out of all proportion to the infant plant and predictably too big for the scarcely settled roots to supply with water.
In mid-May, the spine’s pink petals opened into a ruffle 8” inches across. With a boss of bright yellow stamens in a rose-red heart, it was the most outrageously flamboyant hussy ever seen by daylight.
As I had half expected, the leaves wilted at the first touch of the hot sun, and the stem dropped limply under its great burden. By repressing my better judgment, I had put the plant in danger. It was up to me to rescue it, if I could, without sacrificing the flower.
An old Japanese print of kimono-clad ladies tying umbrellas above their choice of chrysanthemums gave me the solution. If umbrellas kept the snow off the chrysanthemums, why shouldn’t they keep the sun off my poor, wilting peony?
A Parasol As A Cover
The closest counterpart I could find at our local Chinese shop was a child’s parasol which I lashed to a tomato stake and placed above the fainting peony.
The effect was not wholly classic the cover was plastic instead of oiled paper, and the painted design of a boy on a scooter a doubtful improvement on the stylized flowers.
But the bamboo handle and spokes gave the parasol an air of authenticity, enough at least to make it look reasonably at home in a garden. Appearance aside, the important thing is that the device worked.
The transparent plastic tempered the sun’s heat yet cast such a dark shadow that the flower’s brilliance was in no way diminished. It held its head again and expanded its petals until it measured well over 9” inches across.
The flower darkened in color as it aged while its margins turned silvery. At the end of eight days, it was a bit draggled and rumpled but still intact when a wild night of rain and wind scattered its petals across beds and lawns.
Control Of Tree Peonies Flowering
Tamamidori will be deeply rooted enough to need no artificial shade in another year. Be pleased, of course.
Who wouldn’t be when a doubtful plant begins to stand on its own 2’ feet? The only thing bothering me is what to do with the parasol.
I’ll have to keep buying new tree peonies if I want an excuse to use them. With mature tree peonies, the control of flowering is a far easier problem, and the results of a bad guess are not so disastrous.
As in the case of hybrid tea roses, the choice is between letting them grow naturally with many small, crowded flowers or disbudding for one superior flower to a stem.
After 10 or 15 years, a vigorous tree peony may be shouldering high with the spread of a beach umbrella and buds forming all up and down its stems.
Hidden Flowers
If the lower buds are allowed to develop, many will be hidden below the crown of foliage or blanketed by flowers nearer the surface, thereby getting little light.
These hidden flowers, flimsy and often imperfect in form, waste the plant’s productive energy without contributing to its beauty. In addition, tree peonies are not grown for the mass effect of color you get from azaleas, where the individual flower is of little account.
Delicacy is their distinction, the paradox of lightness and grace despite the enormous size. To show them at their best, I take off all but the outer buds and see that those I leave are spaced at least a foot apart so that each great flower is displayed against the foliage in solitary perfection.
44659 by M. M. Graff