Peonies are one of those early flowers that delight us with bright colors when many plants only wake up after a winter holiday. Lush bushes with large flowers are an ornament of any site, and cut buds in a vase for a long time refresh the interior of our houses. Today we will tell you how to grow peonies from seeds, how to care for them.
Why is seed cultivation rarely used?
This method of growing popular flowers is rarely used. Even knowing how to grow peonies from seeds, most gardeners prefer to propagate plants by dividing the bush. Why? There is a simple explanation for this.
Usually, gardeners, acquiring peonies for their site, focus on the beauty of flowers. Therefore, they select hybrids derived by breeders. But the latter have one significant drawback - the conservation of the appearance of flowers is possible only when dividing the bush.
However, it must be recognized that in amateur gardening the purity of a variety is not so important compared to beauty. The vast majority of seedlings obtained from seeds delight owners with very interesting results. Knowing how to grow peonies from seeds, you can propagate wild flowers. These include evasive and thin-leaved species.
Propagation of peonies by seeds is not always possible for objective reasons - some varieties never bear fruit, they simply do not have seeds. These include Marchal MacMahon, Madame Forel, Celestial, Montblanc. This is partly true for milk and terry varieties, in which there are few seeds.
You should know that if you collected seeds, then the plant you grow will resemble the parent bush very distantly. The main varietal traits, especially the brightness of the shade of the flower and the terryness of the petals, will disappear. No one says that flowers will grow ugly, they just will be different. In addition, in order to see and evaluate the result of your work, you have to wait at least five years.
Reproduction of peonies by seeds will require special skills from the grower. This is a laborious and rather complicated procedure, which has many features. But according to gardeners, all the difficulties, the long wait for the results, the inconvenience is more than compensated when you see the flowers bred independently.
Seed features
Blooming peonies is always a holiday. Bright, fragrant flowers are beautiful both on the site and in the table vase. That is why not a single summer cottage is complete without these bushes. Peony seeds are characterized by low germination, which is explained by the presence of an underdeveloped germ, which poorly assimilates the trace elements and nutrients necessary for germination from the soil, and a dense shell.
Another characteristic feature of seeds is low enzymatic activity. This means that in the first year after sowing, as a rule, very few seeds will germinate, especially if they are planted directly in open ground. Most of them will rise only in the second summer. Tree peonies can give seed germination in the third, and sometimes fifth year.
Florists are trying to "deceive" nature by applying stratification (phased). The ability of seeds to slow development passes to seedlings. They grow very slowly, adding a few leaves a year. Flowering begins in the fifth to seventh year after planting in the soil (depending on the variety selected).
Seed germination
Peonies at home from the seeds to grow is not too difficult, but this process has its own characteristics. The reason, again, is the slow germination of seeds. But we said that gardeners have found a way to “rush” nature a bit. What is required for this? Firstly, you should use only your own seeds, and not bought in a store. They must be immature: in the very initial stage of maturation. During this period, they are not solid and painted light brown with tiny yellowish spots, and the leaflets at the seams begin to crack.
It is important that the seeds do not dry out, so they are either sown immediately or stored in the refrigerator in raw sand for 1.5 months. This is best done from the last days of August to mid-September. If you decide to sow them immediately, you need to prepare containers in which seeds are sown to a depth of 5 cm.
Some gardeners plant seeds at this time immediately on the beds. In this case, they go through two stages of stratification - both warm (+15 ... + 30 ° C) and cold, lasting about two months (+5 ... + 10 ° C). This will allow you to get seedlings from planted seeds for next summer. But you must be prepared for the fact that a maximum of 1/3 of the total amount will rise. Some seedlings may appear another year later.
Stratification
This procedure will help you speed up seedling cultivation. This is thermal stratification - the effect on seeds at different temperatures - about +30 ° C in the daytime and about +15 ° C at night.
Warm phase
Seeds should be sown in a wide shallow container in moist sand. It is placed on an electric heating pad (a heating battery is also suitable). The sand should be warmed up to 30 ° C, after which it is cooled and again heated, periodically moistening.
The procedure takes about two months, until the seeds burst and roots appear. Immediately after this, they are removed from the sand, pinch the roots and placed in a tank with soil mixture or in peat pots, lightly sprinkling them. This will significantly reduce the likelihood of injury to seedlings when planting in the soil.
Cold phase
It's time to move on to the cold phase. It is necessary for the active development of the shoot growth point. During this period, the embryo grows actively, and the seeds germinate. This phase lasts about three months. Florists have found a way to reduce this time. To do this, it is necessary to treat the hypocotyl (a piece of the stem located under the cotyledons) with a growth regulator solution. Prepare a 0.01% growth stimulant solution. Seeds are opened, moistened with gauze obtained and put it on the hypocotyl. To maintain the necessary moisture, the seeds are covered with a translucent fabric. If the temperature is maintained from +5 to +10 ° C, then a seed bud is formed on the seedlings and leaves will appear. If, after seven days, the kidney does not appear, the treatment must be repeated.
Seedling Care
When a bud appears on the seedlings, they must be transferred to a warm room (not lower than +16 ... + 18 ° C). The acceleration procedure will require patience and hard work from the gardener, but will save a whole year.
Seedlings are transferred to the garden in early May, they grow in partial shade at a distance of about five centimeters from each other. The soil around them is leveled and mulched with sawdust, which retain moisture and prevent weeds from developing.
Landing at a permanent place
Seedlings grow in containers until August. If weather conditions permit, peonies in the garden can be temporarily planted in a bed with loose and light soil, in a slightly shaded place. The plant must be deepened by two centimeters. At the same time, the peony is planted in open ground in a permanent place. In this case, the bushes are located at a distance of not less than half a meter.
Prepare a landing pit measuring 50 x 50 x 50 cm. Lay out drainage (expanded clay, crushed brick) on its bottom. To half of the earth that you dug from the pit, add 200 g of dolomite flour, potassium sulfate, superphosphate and mix. Pour the resulting composition into the pit. Mix the rest of the soil in equal parts with compost (humus).
Place the young plant in the pit so that the root neck is at the level of its surface, and cover the edges with earth. To stimulate the growth of the root system, you can use "Heteroauxin" or "Humate sodium" (one ampoule or two tablets per ten liters of water).
Peonies prefer the non-hot morning sun, and the midday heat does not suit them. These flowers feel comfortable in the shade of a sprawling tree, preferably in the eastern side of the plot.
Peony pruning
In the first two years of development, peonies need to remove buds. Such a seemingly “barbaric” method stimulates the accelerated growth of the plant and contributes to obtaining abundant flowering in the future.
If you want your house to be decorated with large flowers on a long stalk, then peonies are trimmed as follows: remove all the buds below the top as soon as their size reaches the size of a pea. If you need bright lush bushes on a personal plot, then leave all the ovaries on the branches.
We told you how to grow peonies from seeds. As you can see, the process is not simple, rather laborious, but at the same time very interesting. When the peonies in the garden bloom, you will forget about all the difficulties of growing and enjoy their beauty.