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Newly planted peony with a bud: should I cut it off?

linnea56 (zone 5b Chicago)

7 years ago

last modified: 7 years ago

I planted a Snow Mountain
this year, purchased bare root at a garden fair in mid April. It had several
good eyes and was a big root.

I bought it to replace another Snow Mountain I bought from the same
vendor 2 years ago. I had originally bought a pair. One died the first winter.
I wanted to replace it with the exact same variety, as I have a symmetrical
arrangement.

It took off immediately and is now a foot tall. To my
surprise, it has one bud. For the sake of the plant’s survival and healthy
establishment, should I cut off the bud?

I confess I am curious to see what color it will be. Because
the remaining one of the 2 original “Snow Mountain” has a completely different
leaf color. That is a plain green with no red flush. The surviving original one,
planted in 2014, has not bloomed to this
date. It is currently 18” tall. But it was a small plant to begin with, the
vendor sold smaller plants at half price.

Whereas my other peonies all have a red tinge to the leaves.
(Festiva Maxima and Buckeye Belle) . This new one with the bud ALSO has a red
tinge to the leaves. So I suspect that either it OR the original Snow Mountain are mislabeled.

If it is NOT pure white, but pink or some such color, I will
move it. Everything in this bed is white, red, or white + red. Not right away, whenever is the healthiest time to move it.

Thanks for your help.

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Comments (2)

AlexUnder
7 years ago
Just a few weeks ago I was asking similar question on another forum, but my newly planted (fall 2015 ) plants have quite a few buds - 2 to 7 with everything in between in fact on different ones. One bud is perfectly fine, a few one are fine as well, just cut the flowers off right after they are done so they do not produce seed. I previously had plants with as many as 3 and they were fine afterwards. I got rid of some of my buds by the way - the most numerous ones.
lizbest1
7 years ago
What Alex said! I'd leave the one bud to bloom to confirm it's the type you wanted and cut it off when it starts to fade, leaving as many leaves as possible.
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