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1822betty

Yellow Tree peony has pink flowers from base

Betty Levar
16 years ago

I have had this tree peony for more than 10 years and it is yellow and blooms beautifully. Last year I notice a very robust type of foliage. But because it was on the original stem I left it alone. This year there were multiple suckers around the original plant and today I noticed they have pink flowers. These are rather pretty as they are varigated with a yellow button centre. Should I just leave well enough alone and enjoy whatever grows or should I try and remove the pink peony. Will the pink take over eventually? Can I remove the pink and grow it on as a herbaceous plant? Thanks for your help.

Comments (5)

  • greenguy1
    16 years ago

    Tree peonies are often grafted onto herbaceous peony (P. lactiflora) roots. Usually that root is buried deep enough that it won't sucker, but it sounds like that's what happened to you. The advice for almost all grafted plants is that if the rootstock starts to sucker to remove it, as the rootstock is generally more vigorous (which is why it is used as a rootstock) than the topstock. But, I have no personal experience with this situation with tree peonies, I'm sure others will be able to give you their accounts.

    - Steve

  • charlie_in_ct
    16 years ago

    Steve's advice is correct - you need to remove the lactiflora shoots. The lactiflora shoots remove nutrients and strength from the tree peony, which is presumably what you don't want to do. I had a similar problem and simply gently yanked the lactiflora shoots out of the soil. Of course you don't want to pull so forcefully that you disturb the tree peony. But trust me on this, it is not brain surgery either. My tree peony is doing fine and should grow stronger as a result.

    If the tree peony is 10 years old, in theory you should be able to dig the plant up in the fall and separate out the lactiflora cultivar from your tree peony. After 10 years, your tree peony should be growing on its own roots and would no longer have need of the lactiflora. But I have found that transplanting tree peonies, especially larger ones, can be a tricky operation. Do you really want to risk hurting the tree peony?

    Personally I would ditch the pink lactiflora and concentrate on making the tree peony as vigorous as possible. If you want a pink lactiflora, why not treat yourself to a named variety from one of the many places that offer them for sale?

    Here is a link that might be useful: Suckers on Tree Peonies

  • maifleur01
    16 years ago

    Before you do anything look at the leaves. You may have two different things happening. Are they like the tree peony or herbaceous or a cross? You may have seedlings finally old enough to bloom. If they are like the herbaceaous follow the instructions above and carefully dig and remove.

    Your message said the pink flower was on the original stem. How close to the ground was it? Some plants do throw a sport on just one part of the tree peony. These sports are how some new tree peonies have been proprogated.

    It could also be possible that the new suckers are intersectional seedlings. This is probably not what is happening. Could you post a picture of the foliage of both ?

  • Betty Levar
    Original Author
    16 years ago

    Thank you for your advice. I'm sorry I don't have a digital camera to take a picture. I think it is suckers from the original peony not the tree peony that has come up. It is coming out of the ground near the base of the tree peony. I am going to remove these pink peony suckers. You wouldn't think this would happen after so many years.

  • Cybersunday
    16 years ago

    My experince with one huge tree peony (about 18 blooms this year) is that the lactiflora does not stunt the tree peony grows, if anything, I have two in one, the lactiflora that is single starts blooming about two weeks later. I real winner, however, it may be just that particular variety.

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