Herbaceous peonies, which have foliage that dies back during the dormant season, are the ultimate perennial. They stay where you put them, live for an astounding 40 to 50 years, and require very little attention. They survive the harshest winters, easily resist drought, and aren’t bothered by garden pests. Think of them as garden workhorses—particularly beautiful workhorses.
Types of Peonies –
Single Peonies
Single Peonies include varieties of the primary form in which one or more rows of large petals, known as guards, or guard petals, surround a center of stamens with pollen-bearing anthers which in turn surround the pistil.
Japanese and Anemone Peonies
Japanese Peonies are next in the process of doubling above the normal single form. They include varieties in which the pollen bearing stamens have become more or less transformed into staminodes or narrow petaloid, showing vestiges of the yellow of the anthers. The partially transformed stamens may cary a trace of pollen, but are usually not pollen bearing. The name of ‘Japanese’ is somewhat misleading inasmuch as the varieties of this class are not necessarily of Japanese origin; but because the Japanese people have long admired this type of peony, the name has come to be used to designate the class.
The “Anemone Type” resembles somewhat the Japanese but is distinguished from that by the absence of antheres of any kind, while the filaments of the stamens have taken on a petal-like character, being narrow, more or less incurved and imbricated. While this character is constant in some varieties there are others where it appears in side blooms and flowers borne by one- or two-year-old plants.
Semi-Double Peonies
The “Semi-doubleType” is well marked and includes som ot the most artistic blooms. Flowers of this type never becomeFull Doubles and always show a greater or less number of broad petals intermixed with the stamens, the latter always a prominent feature.1 Semi-Double Peonies are peonies which are have more than one row of petals emerging from the crown of the flower with the crown of the flower exposed. The pollen bearing anthers can be seen while the flower is in bloom.
Double Peony Flowers
Double peonies are of those peonies which have multiple rows of petals
emerging from the crown of the flower with the crown of the flower covered by petals.
In the “DoubleType” the transformation of the stamens and sometimes the stigmas into petals has advanced to that stage where they make up the main body of the flower, sometimes leaving no trace whatsoever of either stamen or stigma, and in others still showing these to a greater or less extent imbedded among the petals. In some varieties of this type the guard petals are shorter than the petaloid, thereby forming a globular bloom. In others the guard petals are longer and prominent, thereby forming the so-called “Bomb Type.” But this form is not constant and often in the same bloom which starts with prominent guard petals, the petaloid keep on developing until they nearly obliterate the guards and eventually make a globular bloom.
Bomb Double Peony Flowers
In some varieties of the Double type the guard petals are shorter than the petaloid, thereby forming the globular bloom. In others the guard petals are longer and prominent, thereby forming the so-called “Bomb Type.” But this form is not constant and often in the same bloom which starts with prominent guard petals, the petaloid keep on developing until they nearly obliterate the guards and eventually make a globular bloom.1
The stamen of the “Bomb Type” are transformed to substantial petals. No pollen is present. These may or may not have the flower-in-flower anatomy, but petals should always develop such as to form a smoothly sculptured, ball-shaped center. Side-buds and reduced flowers of immature plants or plants in poor growing conditions sometimes appear as anemone form.
