Hybridizer Arthur Percy Saunders did more than anyone else to broaden
the genetic base of garden peonies. He systematically produced hybrids which
included as many as four different species in their background. This one, ‘Roselette’s
Child’, has three species in its background: Paeonia mlokosewitschii, Paeonia
tenuifolia and Paeonia lactiflora. It is said to have been raised from a self
pollinated blossom of the hybrid ‘Roselette’.
The nomenclature of the wild peonies continues to shift; the
plant he (and many of us) knew as Paeonia mlokosewitschii is often now made a
form of Paeonia daurica. To generations of peony growers it was long famed as
the only herbaceous peony with truly yellow flowers. A huge effort on the part
of peony hybridizers went into producing yellow-flowered garden peonies. Few of
the hybrids are truly yellow: the yellow pigments seem particularly sensitive
to heat, and generally prove evanescent under warm conditions. But when the
weather is just right, some of these
hybrids produce flowers which are unmistakably yellow.
This year, that’s what ‘Roselette’s Child’ did. This peony
has been in the garden for six years, but never before has it produced a flower
as distinctly yellow as the one shown above. This peony blooms very early in
the peony season, and its buds are sometimes destroyed by freezing. This year
several of the buds did die, and the ones remaining gave the impression of
being about to produce green flowers. But as the bud expanded, the green became
flushed with yellow little by little. It’s been unseasonably cool this week –
night time lows have been down in the lower 40s F. Is that what allows the yellow color to
develop? Or is it a case of the low temperatures suppressing the development of
the pink which sometimes appears in blooms of this peony? Whatever the cause, I
never know what to expect from year to year with this plant. But I would not complain if it looked like this every year!
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