Stig,

Great to have you join the dialog here.

The following is a rather strict stance portrayed by authoritative sources. Adventitious buds on roots is dependant on the parentage of the plant the root came from. It is generally thought that pure Lactifloras do not cast adventitious buds. The adventitious buds seem to be more prevalent on some of the other species and hybrids which include these species. If by Chinese herbaceous peonies you mean cultivars that are currently coming out of china then they will be purely lactiflora and should not cast adventitious buds.

My own experience comes from grafting of tree peonies onto herbaceous rootstock. I always look for Lactiflora rootstock for understock. It seems that an awful lot of the supposedly pure Lactiflora roots end up sending up herbaceous stems after 3 or 4 years. Of course if you just bury roots they wont survive for 4 years in the ground so they don't have time to generate adventitious buds.

I have planted blind roots of Salmon Sunset and almost every root sent out a bud by the next year. The buds come from the strangest places. One would think it would be cast near the proxal end of the root; the end which originated nearest to the crown of the plant it was a part of. The roots of substantial size cast buds on the side generally nearer the small end of the root and never more than one bud per root.

As a disclosure I have been told repeatedly that I should refer to the roots as adventitious and not the resulting buds. It just seems more natural for me to state the resulting buds as being adventitious. I say 'a root cast an adventitious bud' rather than saying 'an adventitious root cast a bud'.

Leon

Thank you for sharing your knowledge. It seems like it would be possible to make a list of hybrids that have roots that easily cast adv buds based on the parenthood of the hybrid. Very interesting. However, to trace the parenthood is perhaps an impossible task on many of the hybrids. I suppose it will be easier with hybrids between a species and a lactiflora, I mean when the species is known.

This is the string, Steve.

It seems like we really have to be patient in this process. When a root piece of decent size should be left in the ground for two or three years before a new bud is formed.

Officialis, tenuifolia or peregrina. If you have crosses where any of the three is involved, the potential seems to be promising.

The list is probably vert long, but Athena, Coral Fay, Early Scout, Red Red Rose and Salmon Glow are among the more common varieties where adv buds may occur on root pieces.

Almost all of the peonies that are sold as coral's will form adventitious buds. Is the reason that you should leave them in place rather than move and plant a different color in the same place.