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What's happening with my Itoh Peony?

7 years ago

last modified: 7 years ago

This is the 3rd year for the plant in my garden and it has bloomed really well for the last 2 years. But this year, in addition to great yellow blooms, it also sent up two or three very long branches - as much as 3 feet higher than the plant itself. Each branch has 1 bloom on the very end. We have quite a few other Peonies which have never done this so I'm wondering if this is something peculiar to this variety? Should we cut them off? They remind me of the sprouts we used to call 'water sprouts' on some trees. Any help would be appreciated. I'm in NE Ohio where we had a somewhat mild winter last year.

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Comments (15)

AlexUnder
7 years ago
Do you have shade when it is staring to bloom?
walt_ebie
Original Author
7 years ago
No, it's in full sun most of the day - maybe 9am to 3pm.
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What's your zone, saragossaseas? Peonies are full sun plants, especially in the north, but they can benefit from some shade during the heat of the summer in the south. Actually they could probably benefit from some summer shade pretty much anywhere except in the most humid climates. You'll want as much sun as possible until they bloom, though. When you say a beautiful specimen, were you talking about the same as graycrna4u? The Itoh Takara? In my experience Itohs don't get quite as leggy as herbaceous in part sun but they won't bloom as much as in full sun. The flowers will be slower to fade, too, though. Again, if you have a spot that would be a bit shadier in the summer than it is during active growing and blooming that's a good thing! My experience with an Itoh in the shade during growing/blooming was Singing in the Rain rather than Takara. I planted one in a shady spot 2 years after I planted one in a sunny spot; shady spot one was a much larger root. They bloomed for the first time the same year, shady spot one had 2 buds, only 1 made it to bloom, sunny spot had 3 and all made it. Shady spot only increased by a couple of blooms the next year, sunny spot had over 10. I dug, divided and selected a new spot for the shady spot SitR that fall! Good luck with your new peony!
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Three plants together growing in the same condition and one suddenly goes limp, would lead me to look carefully at the roots. Something is cutting off the roots from the foliage often gophers. Sometimes voles or even moles making voids in the soil. Al
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AlexUnder is right. Perhaps it just need a shot of fertilizer. I use espoma bulbtone on mine with great results. Just scratch in a tbsp of bulb tone around your peony now. If your peony gives you more than the amount of blooms last year this spring, I think your peony is ok and you should just let it be. Unless you want more divisions of it this plant, then you should not divide. I think yours is tissue cultured and it takes it longer to reach the mature stage. Did your peony just have only one stem when you bought it?
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To lizbest1: Thank you again for your help. I'm going to take a picture of what I see and post it tomorrow. I'm pretty sure they're buds! I'm in Long Island, New York (zone 7, I think) and our weather wasn't all that cold this winter, but it was pretty cold. I see my lilacs are budding, so I think that's a good sign. I'm so excited about my peonies (the one I'm going to post is the biggest one I have) as my late husband was not fond of them--he called them "ant flowers" and mowed down all the ones that were here when we bought this house (needless to say, I was very upset)--but since he passed away in 2015, I'm back to planting peonies. I remember them because of my mother having them. I have 4 other ones--not nearly as big or expensive as this one--and I don't see any buds on them yet. They are much smaller, though. The big one (an Itoh) is in a prime location in my garden. It is in a raised bed--so no standing water and great drainage--and sun almost all of the day. I remember from last year that it was very fragrant. When I transplanted it, I cut the plastic pot off so to not disturb it too much. Luckily, I have a pair of Cutco scissors that can cut through most anything. Again, I am so excited!
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KarenPA_6b
7 years ago
do you have a pic of your bush?
walt_ebie
Original Author
7 years ago
Here's a picture - see the tall sprout on the top - and there is another going out of the picture to the left. The bush has been in this spot since 2011 and never did this before.
AlexUnder
7 years ago
I guess that some of Itohs could be unstable because of their heritage - some mentioned weird tri-color flowers, some other things. Just cut it off and see if this happen again in future. If it does, it may be interesting specimen for breeders. One of my Itohs flower stems are way off the rest of the foliage as well, but nowhere as yours. My theory it has too much shade at blooming time and full sun when it is growing.
KarenPA_6b
7 years ago
Wow, that is really unusual. I have never had this happened to me but all of my itohs were planted in 2012 or after. But I also heard that itohs are rather unstable just as Alex said. i will watch out for such growths in the future. Can I ask what variety is your yellow?
walt_ebie
Original Author
7 years ago
Ours is a Yumi ( Beauty), from Paeonia (Intersectional Hybrid x 'Yellow Doodle Dandy.' We got it from a local nursery via Monrovia.
Heather Macdonald
7 years ago
I have many Itohs and this has never happened, I would cut it close to the ground.
lizbest1
7 years ago
You might want to post a pic and ask a question on the Monrovia website, they might be able to tell you what's going on.
walt_ebie
Original Author
7 years ago
Thanks for the reply - I have sent the info & pic to Monrovia. I'll post their reply here as soon as I hear from them.
lizbest1
7 years ago
I will be very interested in their reply! Even if this is a positive thing where you are able to pull out a different variety of peony (2 for 1, whoo hoo!) I don't think Monrovia will want to get the reputation of having unpredictable plants.
Moxx
7 years ago
It is natural for the Itoh plant to grow higher, and bigger as the bulb/root underneath becomes larger. I would be alarmed if the leaves/flower are different than the rest of the plant. I have "suckers" coming from my tree peony but this is due to grafting, even after in the ground for many years.

Attached is a picture of my Bartzella. There is a high stem coming out of it in the middle, though not as high as yours. Not that it matters, I am located in Toronto, and this Itoh is tissue cultured.
walt_ebie
Original Author
7 years ago
Thank you all for your comments - especially to know that there are other peonies that occasionally do the same thing. So, since mine has put up a bloom on the high stem and does no harm, I'll just leave it alone and see what happens next year.
User
7 years ago
Did you plant a coral peony in that area. If you did you have a new coral. Coral's will grow new plants from a small bit of root.
walt_ebie
Original Author
7 years ago
No, this is the only Peony that's been in that spot.

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