I've spoken before about the surprise to me that peonies seem to volunteer everywhere in my garden and of the
volunteer peonies that have thrived here. Until this week, I've felt like either a deep, dark gardening secret has been hidden from me despite all the reading I've done, or alternatively that I'm just blessed with a peony-fertile climate. Just recently, however I've seen that the volunteer peony issue can plague others in the area. I was taking my first walk of the new spring in the K-State Gardens at lunchtime the other day and came across this obvious aberrant peony growing out of the first tree peony to bloom there.
It is likely, I suppose, that since a tree peony is grafted to the roots of another herbaceous peony, the above break of a graft understock is not so really so surprising. I'm used to rootstocks growing up and being a nuisance in grafter roses. During the same lunchtime constitutional, however, I also observed another herbaceous peony rising from this Itoh hybrid, which I highly doubt is grafted. Itoh hybrids are usually propagated by division according to my reading. I predict that if I watch while the dozens of peonies at K-State bloom, I'll see other wild children, exposed by their flowers after hiding inside more similar foliage clumps.
Regardless of the wanton explosion of unplanned peonies at the K-State garden, however, my own volunteer peonies continue to crop up. Just this week, I noticed this small seeding trying to grow next to the
Knautia macedonia and
Monarda of this bed.
And I've lost count of all the volunteers that grow for me. In this vertical line of three distinct peonies, I think that only the center one was planted and the other two are volunteers. And then there is the volunteer peony with the burgundy foliage growing nearby (and pictured below); it bloomed last year with a deep red, single flower. It is worth keeping for the foliage alone.
Should I now run across the city, screaming warning about the unplanned peony population explosion? Should I be interrogating this advance guard about their alien invasion plans or likely non-terrestrial planet of origin? Both seem like a slight overreaction given the innocuous and welcome presence of a plant that doesn't smother nearby neighbors and will survive the worst things Kansas throws at it. No, I think I'll just keep nurturing these babies along. At worst, they don't have good disease resistance and don't make it. At best, they'll survive for generations and be my legacy, my lasting joke on those who garden here long after I've become part of the landscape rather than a gardener of it, as they try, and fail, to identify what peony varieties I planted here.
In her defense, my larcenous spouse is always quick to respond to these comments and shift all credit to me, although at that point her diversions sound a bit disingenuous. Since the photos are brazenly displayed on her page and the evidence is clear, those weak excuses are not admissible in court and hardly sway the jury. Verdict delivered, the court finds the defendant guilty of rapacious photo pilfering in the first degree. The sentence is final and the punishment of being provided watermarked photos will be carried out immediately.
