Growing Paeonia from seed

Jim McKenney jamesamckenney@verizon.net
Fri, 24 Jul 2015 12:51:00 PDT
Travis, sow the seed immediately and do not let it dry out. The seeds should germinate hypogeally (put out a radical) soon, in a few weeks if they are kept moist. A few might put up foliage this year, otherwise, it will appear next spring.If these are garden peonies, the germination rate should be high; in five or six years they should start to bloom. Most of them will be just as beautiful as the ones sold in catalogs.I did this years ago and the results were so good that I had trouble deciding which ones to keep. Were they peony show quality? Probably not, but they were fragrant and beautiful, and I would have had no trouble passing them off as old named varieties whose labels had been lost.
Jim McKenneyMontgomery County, Maryland, USA, USDA zone 7, where I still have peonies bought from the John Scheepers Company over a half century ago. What's surprising about that is that I'm still here to enjoy them, not that the peonies are still here.
   



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