My idea.
From small root pieces, allow the roots to develop by nipping off any flower buds for 2 years.
Then - let her rip...
Or, just see if this works...it may not...

Thank you!
I hope I will get a top growth some day and then flower bud I can nip off :)
There are no eyes.
The good news are Paradise garden agreed to replace the rotten root this fall.

I'm finding that like herbaceous peonies, itoh peonies also seem to be growing from fragments, as long as there's are buds on it. They are kind of like a potato which would grow much easier with eyes, and the size of the attached tuber mass tends to determine the size of the plant. I have literally taken a herbaceous peony eye, placed it some seed starter soil, and it ended up growing into a small plant.

I have no idea if eyeless fragments can develop eyes and flower, but I would suggest potting them up, keeping them watered, and hope that buds form and produce some small sprouts. It is very possible as I have seen eyeless pieces of herbaceous peonies produce sprouts. When you get your new itoh replacement, I would suggest planting it in full sun in an area where soil drains well, or perhaps create a raised mound over it since partially tuberous roots may be vulnerable to rotting with standing water.

Thanks for your advice and observations Steve.

I grow Itoh Peonies for several years and all of them are planted in excellent soil with perfect drainage. These babies are expensive and I do not want to loose them :)
As for the full sun exposure, I found that Itoh grow well in part sun too. My Bartzella that receives about 4 hours of direct sun a day bloomed with more than 20 flowers this year.

It has been almost a month since I potted those eyeless root pieces up. No sprouts so far. I keep the potting medium slightly wet. Will see... If I will finally get sprouts, I'll report here.

Just to give you a little bit of hope, after a couple weeks, I'm seeing eyes form on some bare root fragments on some root pieces that were broken off by accident. It looks like they do have the potential to become viable plants, even when they don't start off with any eyes.

The odd thing is that I wasn't able to get any of my herbaceous roots that didn't have eyes to make sprouts so I guess dormant itoh peonies may be easier to propagate.

If you have firm pieces of roots, I would suggest potting them up, and covering them just barely with enough soil so they don't dry out, and watering them a little bit every day, keeping them in full sun. Watering them with some willow tea might help them, but I have seen 2 of my budless fragments of itoh peonies produce buds, and should start growing very soon.

Here is my blog on itoh peonies showing sprouts after a week.

Here is a link that might be useful: Blog on new itoh peonies

I actually have a lot of herbaceous roots that don't have eyes on them that I would like to get to form eyes and grow. I'm not sure if I could get that to happen with cytokinen or any kind or budding hormone.

Steve, I remembered reading another string about herbaceous peonies growing from fragments of roots without eyes; I plant all of my pieces now, just in case. I've had some grow from decent sized pieces with no eyes already.
I found that other string and updated it for you to read.

Aventitious bus sounds pretty cool. I guess if I get them potted up, there's a good chance some of them can sprout some buds. If nurse roots on a grafted tree peony can sprout herbaceous shoots, they should have the potential to generate sprouts. I just need to get it to happen before the root rots. I do use alfalfa tea for the triacontanol on my garden plants so I can put some on the peony roots to see if it encourages budding.

As far as grafting them, I'm pretty much out of tree peony branches that I can keep grafting on so in order to not waste these, I guess I'll just try to turn them into viable plants eh.

Suggested reading: Peonies (Rodgers). Contains a list of peonies that form adventitious buds on root pieces, if I remember correctly.

This post was edited by Stig_of_the_Dump on Mon, Jan 13, 14 at 6:18