The Itoh is a priceless peony
A Japanese breeder’s determination brought the world a beautiful, new flowering plant.
LIKE the race to get to the moon, humans have always sought the seemingly unattainable.
Gardeners and plant breeders are no different.
When the possibility of a blue rose appeared on the horizon, gardeners queued to get one.
Sadly, they were disappointed. The blue rose never eventuated, unless of course yours is a warped sense of colour recognition.
Yet some of those holy grails of gardening have been achieved.
One is the amazing Itoh peony.
A cross that achieves the best of the beautiful tree peony and the beguiling herbaceous peony, the Itoh was long dreamt about, but many feared it would never eventuate, scoffing it was an impossibility, the two being too far apart genetically.
Happily, stubborn Japanese hobby plant breeder Toichi Itoh wasn’t convinced. He devoted much of his life to achieving the seemingly impossible, and in 1948 produced seven successful crosses. Sadly, he died before they bloomed.
It may have ended there, but years later US horticulturist Louis Smirnow spotted one of these yellow-flowering hybrid beauties and, after buying specimens from Toichi Itoh’s widow, restarted the breeding program.
The results have been stunning.
Australia did not see its first huge bloomed Itoh peony until four or five years ago, and only in the past two or so years have they become generally available.
Keen gardeners have clamoured to get their hands on them, despite their hefty price, from about $40 to $100 for a bare-rooted specimen.
However, in the US when they first started appearing they are reported to have cost $500 to $1000.
So why are they so sought after?
Dave Roberts-Thomson of family nursery Van Diemen Quality Bulbs, at Wynyard, Tasmania, was one of the first to release Itohs here (its latest line-up has just gone on sale, vdqbulbs.com.au), and he tells me it’s because they are a peony game-changer, the greatest thing to happen to these oriental beauties in half a century.
“The wonderful thing about Itoh peonies is that it’s a lot easier to get a good result,” he says. “They’ll pretty much always flower in their first year. They have beautiful autumn foliage. And they aren’t so picky about the soil they’re grown in.
“On top of that you get a much wider range of flowers, from apricot and yellows through to pinks, whites, scarlets and even purples. This is a much wider range than your herbaceous peonies.”
Itoh peonies boast foliage similar to tree peonies and grow more vigorously than tree or herbaceous peonies. Like herbaceous peonies, they die back each year.
It’s claimed long-established Itohs in the US regularly produce bushes with more than 50 blooms each.
About their only downside is that as a picked flower they have a shorter vase life than herbaceous peonies.
Like herbaceous and tree peonies, these “intersectional peonies”, as they are sometimes known, are ideal for growing in Victoria and Tasmania with our cooler climates and frosts, yet they are more adaptable.
“They don’t require as much cold as herbaceous peonies so they can be grown in a wider area,” Dave says.
“We’re not quite sure how wide an area that is just yet but it’s pretty encouraging.”
I’m hooked. I know it won’t be a forever thing but I’m planning to grow one of these peonies in a pot. With luck I’ll get a couple of years of good blooms before needing to plant it in the garden.
WHAT TO DO THIS WEEK
PLANT alyssum, calendula, candytuft, Canterbury bell, lilium, nigella, pansy, pentstemon, poppy, primula, snapdragon, viola, and wallflower.
PREPARE soil for planting bare-root specimens towards the end of the month.
GET in crops of broad beans, cabbage, garlic, Jerusalem artichoke, lettuce, onion, peas, radish and shallots.
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