I am so excited to see buds on my itohs, Cora Louise, Halleigh's Hallelulia and Magical Mystery Tour. Cora Louise is a tissue culture plant from Lowes that I planted sping 2013. HH and MMT roots which I bought last fall.from Select Plus Peonies were huge. I had to divide them into smaller pieces.

Would someone tell me again the diff between tissue culture and whatever the other type is? I would assume tissue culture means that a root ball wasn't simply divided but rather a piece of the plant itself was propagated??

Mary, when I google "tissue culture", this explanation comes up:

"Tissue culture is a process that involves exposing plant tissue to a specific regimen of nutrients, hormones, and light under sterile, in vitro conditions to produce many new plants, each a clone of the original mother plant, over a very short period of time."

When I bought the Cora Louise, there were 2 very small tubers, about 1" width and about 4" long the bag. I planted them 1 in ground and 1 in pot and it took them 2 growing seasons to reach blooming size. I bought a Lollipop itoh from Michigan Bulb last year which I believe is also tissue cultured. THis itoh is probably smaller than the Cora Louise. I think it is going to take me 4 years to see a bloom from it.

The plants are still duplicates of the parent, though, just like a divided rootball. I think of it as taking 50 divisions of a peony that I would've divided into 2 or 3 roots. Most tissue culture plants are sold very small--probably like a 2 year plant from seed, still 2-4 years away from blooming. The root ball will eventually end up just as big and pretty much the same as the original plant.
I read about an experiment on the Southern Peony Blog a few years ago, she took tiny pieces of an Itoh and planted it, some just an eye, and almost all of them grew. Always said I was going to try that, just shave off a bit of root with an eye and plant it near the parent plant to see if it would work for me!

That's so exciting Karen. I'm looking forward to the photos, especially Halleigh's Hallelulia as that's one you rarely see. My Select Plus exclusive peonies have yet to come up so I'm still a bit anxious.

You can usually tell the difference between a tissue culture propagated peony versus a root division propagated peony just by the crown structure. In my experience, tissue cultured peonies have eyes that form a tight clump like this:

Sure Nick! I hope the blooms make it to maturity. If mine have blooms, I am sure that yours will too as we both got them from Select Plus. I got HH, MMT, and Strawberry Creme Brulee from Select Plus. THe SCB is a really small root which I think is going to take 2 years to reach blooming size.

So Karen, how many pieces did you divide your Halleigh's Halleluliah and Magical Mystery Tour in to? I cut mine roughly in half but got tired before I finished, left 1 whole but don't remember which it was....I'm reserving a nice, sharp coping saw for Itoh division from now on!
So excited to hear you have buds on those, by the way! Looking forward to saying the same about the time you're posting pictures of your blooms! WOOHOO, it's PEONY TIME! At least in the warmer climes.....For me it's LOOKING AT PICTURES OF EVERYONE ELSE'S PEONIES TIME!! Funny that I'm just as excited to see everyone's posts about what's happening with their plants and seeing the pics as I am to see what's happening in my yard!

I divided HH into 1 big piece and two small pieces and did the same for MMT. It is hard to be in colder zones when everyone's peonies are blooming and yours are not even close. And then a couple of warm days, the buds burst open. Just like that! It can happen so fast! And before you know it, the season is almost over. That's why itohs are nice. The buds mature at the different times so we get an extended season. How is your Pastelegance peony doing, Liz? Wow, I did not know that you also got Impossible Dream! I am excited to see these blooms for you this year! I was going to get the Impossible Dream peony last year but I blew the budget so it will have to wait.

Pastelegance is getting a bit taller and the buds are getting larger, too. Hopefully they'll make it to bloom! Impossible Dream is just a couple of pips still, nothing over an inch tall yet. Think I'll go out and take pictures again today or tomorrow. I know I have buds on some herbaceous that have been in place for a few years. None of the Itohs are big enough to see buds yet. I'm really bad about dividing peonies as soon as they're big enough. I send them to my sisters, give to friends here locally and trade in our Rocky Mountain spring and fall plant trade days.
Might have to dig out my favorites sometime this year, too--we're putting our house on the market to get ready for retirement in a few years! Might have to get inventive to make sure I can keep the ones that are most important to me, which just happens to be all of them.....Have no clue if we can sell this year. The market is pretty hot now for houses close or in town, don't think it's nearly as much so here in the boonies!