Tree Peonies For Introduction

When we started our farm, we were fortunate to purchase 300-400 Tree Peony seedlings from a peony grower looking to retire.

As the seedling mature, many are showing great promise. We’ve even decided to introduce several varieties to market!

Which is where you come in!

We need your help naming these lovely plants.

Maybe you have a special loved one and want a variety to carry their name?

Or maybe you’re a creative and would like to add your special flare to one of these tree peonies?

Either way, we’re stumped on names and need inspiration from our Lyndaker Farms subscriber community!

Below are the tree peonies we hope to introduce over the next few years.

In the comments below, just list the Seedling ID and your suggestions for names. Or shoot them right to me at info@lyndakerfarms.com We’d also love to hear why you’ve chosen that name!

As we gather and choose names, we’ll be keeping our email list posted on the final name selections!

So with no further ado…

here are the Lyndaker Farms’ 2020 introductions!

SeeDling #101-SC

Seedling #101-SC has large, lavender semi-double blooms, with dark purple basal flares. As the flowers mature they fade through to a pleasing cream. It’s overall appearance reminds us of classic variety “Shimane Chojuraku” but blooms Carl’s Calling blooms are somehwat fuller for us.

Petals are ruffled and attractively arranged around the golden center.

The Seedling is very cold tolerant. Currently it’s planted in a very cold and windymicro-climates and, though we sometimes lose a small portion of the buds to late frost,the plant itself continues to grow and thrive.

Seeling #101-SC is fragrant and easily produces pollen and seed.

Seedling #493

I loved this seedling but wasn’t sure whether its flower form - a single - would appeal to a wider gardening audience.

Quite the opposite, Seedling #493 turned out to be one of our most popular peonies on social media!

And really, there’s so much to love about this plant. The blooms combine salmon and light pink tones offset by beautiful gold stamens and maroon basal flares. The overall effect is ethereal.

The plant is exceptionally floriferous, very fragrant and a vigorous grower.

Seedling #493 tolerates strong winds, is very cold tolerant and easily produces pollen and seed!

The combination of the delicate flowers displayed on green foliage prompted one customer to suggest we name Seedling #493, “Pink Butterflies on Green Perch.” I love the sound of that. Anyone else agree?

Seedling #521

The perfect mix of color, form fragrance and habit, Seedling #521 loosely formed double (and sometimes semi-double) blooms upright on an attractively formed tree.

Flowers are a lilac that, to my eye, have more blue and less pink than shown in the photographs above. Typical of Tree Peonies with Rockii heritage, the blooms sport deep purple flares at the base of each petal.

Seedling #521 is fragrant, blooms freely and produces both pollen and seed. This seedling is an early bloomer with exceptional cold tolerance.

Even in unusually wet year, this plants shows great disease resistance.

Seedling #650

In person, Seedling #650 is breathtaking - easily one of my current top 5 seedlings. However, I’ve not been able to adquately capture its beauty in pictures. Hopefully, my description can do it more justice.

Seedling #650’s sports loads of loosely double blooms that open a delicate lavender, fading through to a clean white as flowers mature. Blooms have a sweet, pleasing fragrance and the flowers readily attract pollinator activity, despite being of double form

As shown in the 5th picture above, the flowers are unusually large - larger even than 10” dinner plate pictured below it! Petals form a “vortex” around the center of the bloom, causing one Peony Enthusiast to suggest “The Tornado” as the name for this variety

Not only are the flowers large and well formed, Seedling #650 produces loads of them. If I remember correctly we had nearly 20 flowers (or more?) in 2019. The large flower size combined with sheer numbers makes the plant come alive

The plant itself is excpetionally large/vigorous. with foliage trimmed in burgundy and accented by attractive burgundy stems. Even without the beautiful flowers, the plant has garden merit just for these characteristics alone.

The plant shows no signs of disease - even in 2019, an excessively wet year. Seedling #650 is easily fertile both ways.

Seedling #651

Seedling #651 produces large full blooms on a somewhat petite plant. Flowers are semi-double to double, with doubles becoming more common as the plant matures.

The flowers are fragrant and held proudly on the tree. Petals have a crinkled almost crepe paper-like in appearance. The tree produces a medium amount of flowers and is very disease resistant.

This variety readily produces pollen. We suspect it will also produce seed but need to observe further.

Seedling #901-B

And I save d the best for last with Seedling #901-B. This lavender-pink double bloom combines beautiful color, outstanding form and excellent plant habit.

The frilly unusually colored petals are a lavender-pink when the flower first opens but fade to a lighter shade as the flower matures. In addition, the medium sized blooms are frgrant and produce pollen.

This plants habit is unusually upright and pleasing.

This is the only seedling for which we have a tentative name. As it’s my daughter’s favorite peony, she has asked that we name it “Catherine” after her.