Carol, sown now without a warm period first, you may have to wait a full year+ for germination. Tree peony seeds have 'double dormancy' needing a dose of moist warmth to initiate a root followed by winter cold to to get a shoot started. Sown fresh in Fall they will germinate in Spring - I've had them germinate from winter sowing but 15 months later so give it a try since seeds are available but be prepared to hang onto those pots for a while.

No, not winter sowing yet - I just finally finished Fall cleanup two weeks ago, and got tree/house decorated for Christmas over the weekend :)

Someone sent me 1 seed so I am going to try my luck with the tree peony as well. This is the site that I got the germination instructions from:

http://www.paeonia.com/html/peonies/propagation.htm

Someone sent me 1 seed so I am going to try my luck with the tree peony as well. This is the site that I got the germination instructions from:

http://www.paeonia.com/html/peonies/propagation.htm

I don't know a thing about tree peonies (thought they were little trees) but love them, don't know where I would put one. This one I've looked all over the web and asked locally where I think it was purchased, but nobody seems to know which one it is. I even wrote Klehm's Song Sparrow, and they were nice enough to look at my photo on the web, they didn't know either. There are some similar but none quite like this one.

I've got several more photos of different ones I took at a friend's house.

Good luck with your seeds, hope they germinate for you. Maybe they can be propagated by division and your friend might let you have a rooted section in the spring? I've read that can take several years to mature enough to bloom but don't know for sure.

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This is what my tree peony looks like. It had lots of seed pods but only one seed this year.

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wow lois that is beautiful. I hope my one seed turns out to look like that :)

After I found out what they were, they are so special. The petals look like pure silk to me, unlike the more common peonies which I love, too.

Lois, yours is a beauty. Maybe since they bloom early, if they can be divided, it should be done in the fall?

Rather than clutter up the thread with embedding any more photos, I put up a small web gallery last May of the ones at my friend's, fast to view.

Here is a link that might be useful: Tree Peonies, Ger. Rozanne & couple others (13 photos)

Yes, I think fall would be the time to divide them... I am too chicken to try that.. I tried to dig another one up and I think I killed it. :o( Perhaps if I ever got another one or 2 and tried again, I would use the hose method: dig a deep trench at least a foot away from the plant, then use a hose to wash soil off the roots into the trench, scoop out the mud and repeat until I uncovered enough of the roots to be able to dig up the plant without snapping the very brittle roots.

The one in my picture has a lower branch stretching out horizontally, so I am going to try to layer that branch this spring. It will be 2 yrs before I know if I am successful.

If you have a tree peony, one lovely flower to plant in front of it is a brunnera macrophylla, for example, Jack Frost. The forget-me-not type flowers bloom at exactly the same time as the tree peony. I believe you can wintersow the brunnera seeds, too.

Lois in PA

Lois, I'm a little schizzy about dividing, too, but must some less choice plants in spring. If I lose those, easy enough to replace.

Thanks for the idea about the trench as I've lost several rose suckers I wanted to transplant, finally figured out something like you said. It's not that their roots are as delicate but the shoot (don't know what they're called) to the mother plant must be severed so they can grow on a bit and develop a more extensive, independent root system of their own, then dug up and moved. The hose will help my back if I have to go down very deep.

Now layering, only tried on a clem and didn't work. But if there's any chance you could get another tree peony by that method, it sounds safer, just would take a lot of patience.

In one of my slides, I don't know what he has in front of the one tree peony cluster, but it's a nice arrangement. I have Jack Frost but it's in too much shade under a large tree, seems happy enough its first season, may make babies - or may not come back in the spring. No chance for a tree peony there.

Thanks every one,
I think i will wait and collect some seed next year from her,at 62, i don't have a lot of years to wait them out,ha ha
cAROL

I put tree peony seeds in a small amount of mix in a small plastic bag earlier this fall. Now where can it be? Thought it was on my desk, guess it is time to get my office cleaned and organized again. Maybe it is under that pile of envelopes filled with collected seeds that are drying and waiting to be cleaned.

Ooo, found them, right where I thought they would be.

Carol, you can start them this year with the warm period by putting them in a small amount of moist mix and keeping it on your desk or somewhere in the house before putting them in the frig or ws outside for the cold period then they will have a warm period again in the spring.

I'm 61 and don't have time to wait another year, have to do it now!

Check out this link conniesc gave above for details

Here is a link that might be useful: peonie propagation