Peony Questions Answered

Moving Peonies

Question: I must move my nine peony plants about 20 feet. I have read that this is difficult for plants that have been in the same place for years. If I dig a big ball of dirt around the plant, is it likely to survive or should I divide the plants and hope for the best? Also, I live in Virginia, which is zone 7. What is the best time of year to move them? Thank you so much for any advice.

Answer: The large food storage roots of peonies make them well constituted to tolerate disturbance at any season. However, the most favorable season for their survival and re-establishment is autumn. Early fall is most favorable, but any time before the soil freezes is better than spring. See the Propagation section of this website for detailed information on dividing and moving peonies.

Propagating Woody Peonies

Question: I have a yellow tree peony that is about 5 years old. How do you propagate a tree peony? Thank you for any information.

Answer: Tree peonies are most commonly propagated by grafting a budded stem piece onto a piece of root from the commonly grown herbaceous peonies. This is most efficient in terms of number of new plants generated, and least disruptive on the mother plant. Check the Propagation section of this website for details. Older plants may also be successfully divided by digging widely around the plant, a foot or more out from where the stems come out of the ground. Dig deeply in order to get as much of the root system as possible. Gently loosen the soil from the roots, at last washing away remaining soil so you can see where to divide so as to have sections of the top of the plant connected with a supply of roots. The fleshy roots contain food which will support the new plant in its first year. It's best to cut the top growth back by at least half. There is no guarantee you will not lose part or all of the pieces. However, experienced peony growers learn by doing it and you will also. This also applies to grafting, but with grafting you don't appreciably disturb the mother plant, and so it is not at risk. Good gardening!

Fertilizing Peonies

Question: I have found conflicting advice on the time of the year best to fertilize herbaceous and tree peonies. Is fall the best, or spring for either or both? Thank you.

Answer: We prefer fall so that the nutrients will have a little time to dissolve and percolate into the root zone. Either time would be preferable to summer, unless they have not been supplemented before and are in serious need -- as in performing poorly. Peonies must grow well to flower well.

Locating Old Peonies

Question: I'm trying to locate a peony that my great grandfather developed. His name is Augustof Jules De Mars. I believe the name of the peony was Mureljean. It would have been developed in the 30's or 40's in Minnesota. How would I go about locating any, if they still exist.

Answer: A place to start is to learn if the peony name was ever established by going through the peony names checklist available on the American Peony Society website, or by searching for the originators name in the same facility. An Internet search may also turn up something. Finally, a query to the Cultivar Registrar might get you the following answer - The chances of locating this peony are statistically zero. The APS membership lists I checked (1938, 1944, 1951) do not have Mr. de Mars (or anything close) as a member. A peony by that name was never registered with the APS and it does not show in any other supplemental lists incorporated into my database. There is a very remote chance that it might be mentioned in some article or in a show report, but the information I've incorporated into my list hasn't reached down that far yet. The best advice may be to suggest a classified ad in the Bulletin. There may be some grower or collector who has it, but I rather doubt it. There were very many peonies that existed in their originator's gardens and nowhere else.

Correct Peony Names

Question: My great-grandfather (on my maternal side) was John F. Rosenfield. He was known as the Peony King of the United States at one time. He cultivated the Karl Rosenfield peony, which is a crimson red flower, named for one of his sons (my great-uncle) I have this information from a copy of his death notice in an Indianapolis, IN newspaper. I see many of these peony plants with the name Karl "Rosenfeld". This is incorrect. How can I get this changed?

Answer: The APS records have it as 'Karl Rosenfield'. There is nothing we can do about vendors who do not take the care to get the names right. It's a problem that includes some unethical renaming of old established varieties and offering them as something new. All we can do is educate the gardening community by offering access to the Checklist of Peony Names available on this website. You might point out these errors to the vendors concerned. Some of them are thankful for the correction, but others do get a bit nasty in their responses.

History of N. I. W. Kriek

Question: I have a peony in my garden, that has been determined by a French grower to be 'Felix Supreme' (Kriek, 1955). He did not know the nationality of the person Kriek, and I therefore asked for help at the Dutch bulb growers association in my country, the Netherlands. They told me about you, and also told me that you guard the International Peony Cultivar Register. Do you have some further details about Kriek?

Answer: N. I. W. Kriek. Was born in 1895 in Leyden, Holland. Sometime before 1923 he emigrated to the United States. He was the manager of Cottage Gardens, Lansing, Michigan, USA for many years, and probably was the founder and owner of that nursery. He wrote articles for the Florist's Review and for the American Peony Society Bulletin (from 1929 to 1956). Cottage Gardens probably grew peonies and other flowers for the florist's trade. Kriek also grew tree peonies and wrote about his experience with this and with propagating them by grafting. There is not much written about Kriek, and no obituary was published in the APS Bulletin, therefore we don't know that much about him.