| The Pacific Northwest Peony Society had its annual meeting yesterday, and it was a great success. Several site members (myself, Eliz Babb, Andrea Moore, Irene Tollomeo) got to meet face to face for the first time, and a surprising number of
other site "lurkers" were there as well. I had several additional members ask me about the site, so interest in what one site member has previously referred to as "The International Peony Society" continues to grow.
The main feature of the meeting was a talk by the well known hybridizer of intersectional, Roger Anderson. He was a "fount" of information, and had a few things to say specifically about growing "Bartzella"
(photo by "Bartzella" M. Parlasca)
1. First ,for those that want plants from him, there will be a few available and the price this year will be $300. You will have to write him, because he is not sending out a catalog this year. He is simply too overwhelmed with standing orders already and does not need to actively generate
more demand at this time. However, he is a very nice man, and will do what he can to help you if you write to him. He wishes MORE people were propagating intersectional, to take the pressure off of him!! He is also open to helping anyone else interested in hybridizing intersectional, so if you are pursuing this
and have questions...
2. Whereas some of the intersectional can stand a level of shade, Bartzella wants 3/4 of a days worth of sun to bloom well.
3. Too much fertilizer will grow large green plants, but may completely prevent blooming.
4. When planting larger divisions, you can double the number of plants you have by dividing every year. Two years generally triples the number of plants. In 3 years, plants, when well grown, begin to get too woody to be easy to divide, and take some pretty massive cutting through the crown
tissue. As it is, they often use a "Saws-All" electric saw to do their division!!
Roger also works with hybridizing tree peonies , lactiflora, and herbaceous hybrids. He showed us some slides of nice ones he had, so do not discount his other, non-intersectional introductions!!
He certainly was emphatic in his recommendation for using the lactiflora peony "Martha W" (the seed parent of Bartzella) as a parent in ANY sort of hybridizing. While its flower may not be much special, its growth and plant habit is terrific, and many nice herbaceous peonies have
resulted from his use of it in hybridizing to produce new intersectional seed parents. As a parent for intersectional, it sets an inordinate amount of seed, and apparently does not produce as many I/S plants which get unacceptable "brown spot" on the foliage after bloom as other seed parents do.
This brown spot in the past has been one of the major reasons why Intersectional seedlings end up on the compost pile. Apparently it is particularly prominent on any red intersectional, which is why there are so few of that color.
Regarding F2 intersectional, it is his feeling that even if they are finally produced, they also may be sterile, rather than resulting in restored fertility. This is apparently because intersectional are triploids (usually sterile) and any F2s would also be triploids and sterile.
Apparently no hormone or colchicines experiments have been done with intersections (or even with tree peonies??) in regrets to changing ploidy.
'Hillary' MAY or may not be an F2 from Bartzella. No promises.
Apparently there have been some F2 seeds (seeds collected from I/S flowers) which have germinated, but very very few, and apparently no reports of mature plants. Roger apparently collects all the seeds he finds, and has had about two seeds germinate, but "accidents" have happened
to them. One other club member apparently has two F2 seeds which have put up leaves just this spring. One seed is from Hillary.
No efforts have been made to outcross I/S peonies to pure P. Lutea. species or others of that group, however, all tree peony pollen parents of existing I/S peonies have been been "Lutea hybrids" up to this time. Apparently there have also been no pure Mountain/Rocki pollen parents.
Although Mountain pollen is not effective, apparently it needs to be one parent of the Lutea Hybrid pollen I/S parent to serve as a "vehicle" for the cross to be successful in some way.
However, the standing consensus regarding peonies remains that anything may happen with Peony hybridizing, so never say never!!
Bob J
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