Carsten Burkhardt's Web Project Paeonia - The Peony Library

ano_finnland7 index 0602 boreas2

Paeonia-Literatur 2007


The trustability of „named seedlings“ of chinese tree peonies, Rockii group – A 3-year follow-up

In October 2004, the author imported a number of 700 tree peonies from a nursery in Lanzhou, province Gansu of China. The shipment consisted of 100 single-stem large seedlings, 200 assorted 5-6 year old „named“ seedlings, and 400 grafted plants. As there were quality problems due to insufficient shipment time, I got a second shipment as replacement right after the first, with 400 more seedling plants, altogether.

Within the planting seasons 2004/2005, 2005/2006 and 2006/2007, the large majority of the plants were sold using the author's webshop throughout different countries of Europe. This report gives the follow-up of those seedling plants, which came into flower in my garden after settling down for a long-enough time.

In spring 2007, during the flowering period I had many emails and telephone calls from people who purchased tree peonies from me. Most reported that the plants grew well and flowered vigorously, but some reported, that the flowers were not like it was promised.

I decided to make pictures of all the remaining plants, which flower. Every plant was labeled individually. Normally, they had only the name of the cultivar, but this season every single plant was labeled with a numbered and the pictures were taken always from the label and the flower.

The largest number of left-overs is from the cultivar 'Zibanfen' – 8 plants in total came into bloom.

The description of the cultivar is: „light pink flowers, single petals, ... black .. base speckles. The numerous stamens have yellow anther and white filaments. etc.“ The picture below shows a typical flower.

Table 1. Eight plants of the cultivar 'Zibanfen' - Not a single plants fits the description.






The second largest group of from the cultivar 'Xuezhongsongtan', described as single, white. Typical flower is shown below.


Table 2. Five plants of the cultivar 'Xuezhongsongtan', only one fits the description






The third group are from the cultivar 'Taohuamudan'. Typical flower is shown below. This is not a seedling, it is a grafted variety. Thereby should be no difference visible between individual plants.


Table 3. Five plants of the cultivar 'Taohuamudan'. The same kind of mixture as before.




Discussion

It is hard to believe that I'm the only one who imported a well mixed bunch of „named“ seedlings from a chinese nursery. These seedlings are very popular to the customers, because they get good quality plants, a lot of wood on own roots. The plants grow fast and are healthy. If the shipping cost is not too high, they can be offered at very competitive prizes in Europe.

As the number of plants imported by me is very small and not representative, and not all of the plants are left in the field (90% were already sold), it is possible, that all the others were true to name. But who believes this is a fool. This report emphasizes to be very careful with uncontrolled imports. Where ever the plants came from.

The last picture shows a plant which is now 120 cm high, has many many branches and 35 flowers this year. Since November 2003 in my garden – the best from my first import.



Carsten Burkhardt's Web Project Paeonia - The Peony Library

ano_finnland7 index 0602 boreas2

Paeonia-Literatur 2007