RE: paeonia in med. climate
- Subject: RE: paeonia in med. climate
- From: C* J*
- Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2001 15:35:31 -0800
Trevor - thank you. You've provided hope for the paeonia envious...
-----Original Message-----
From: trevorn@torrens.tafe.sa.edu.au
[t*@torrens.tafe.sa.edu.au]
Sent: Thursday, November 08, 2001 3:23 PM
To: CarolJ@minimed.com; medit-plants@ucdavis.edu; 'oronperi@hotmail.com'
Subject: RE: paeonia in med. climate
Dear All
I grow many Peonia species in my Med. climate garden. we have very long, hot
dry summers November until the end of April, virtually no rain and high
temps up to 114 degrees sometimes for a week or longer straight. Our winter
is cool and wet with occasional light frosts, some infrequent hail storms
and very rarely - once in five years - some light snow. Our soil is rock
filled loam over crumbly shales and quartz. I gow and flower P.
cambessedesii, P. mascula, P. peregrina, P. russii, P. mascula, P. emodii,
P. sternii, P. mlokowitschii, P. biebersteiniana, P. graeca, P. lithophylla
and others I cannot remember right now. They all love to be in full sun for
most of the day. They enjoy a deep litter type mulch (coarsely shredded tree
branches) and the absolutely HATE competition from nearby tree and roots. My
soil is slightly acidic but I grew some in my previous garden near the sea
on a clifftop where the soil was definitely alkaline. I grow my plants from
seed and plant them out when they are 2 - 3 years old. I think they do not
like being split up and palnted as divisions; my experiences at this have
all proven disastrous. The mother plants slowly died and the 'splits' failed
to thrive and eventually died too.
I have seen peonies growing wild in Greece and Mallorca; the Greek ones
seemed in slightly more favourable circumstances but even so the growing
conditions were tough. Very rocky soils in both cases; on Mallorca the
plants were growing with roots fully exposed in a deep fist sized scree at
the base of a cliff falling into the sea. This was P. cambessedesii. Some of
my seed raised plants came from this site.
I have found that the plants are fairly reliable as perennials lasting 10 -
15 years before expiring. By this time I usually have a number of seedlings
that have naturally regenerated and standing ready to take the place of
their dead parent.
I do not give my plants summer irrigation so by the end of the foliage looks
pretty battered and browned off around the leaf margins but this seems to do
no harm. Fat healthy growth buds are evident just below ground level. I do
water newly set seedlings for the first year.
trevor nottle
Trevor Nottle
Manager-Education
TAFE Horticulture Centre
505 Fullarton Road
Netherby
South Australia 5062
AUSTRALIA
Tel. 61 +8 +8372 6801 Fax. 61 +8 +8372 6888
