I'm a little late to the game on this, but we are experiencing a freeze here in the PNW and we are on day 4. January was quite warm, so everything has already gotten started on spring growth.
My beautiful and established Cora Louise itoh peony already has some hefty shoots on it (maybe 5 inches long?). Is there anything I can do to protect them at this point? I mulched the base of he plant last week, I had thought this would be a one day occurrence, but I woke up this morning to the third morning sub 30 degrees!
Any reassurance or ideas?

I have a few smaller itohs, the most promising of which had it's main shoot chomped by an animal (argh!) yesterday, so, I am panicing I will not be able to enjoy peony blooms this spring in my garden. Thanks!

As long as temps are above 30F, you need not worry much about them. If there is an extended freeze like 30F and below, best to cover the bush with either a big pot or trash can. You should be ok. Extended temps in the 20's and below is when most damage occurs (at least for my peonies anyway).

Thank you! I will try to protect it tonight. Last year we had a cold snap and I tented my young rhododendrons, but had to get rid of my materials this spring.

It has been below 30 for a few days (very rare this time of year for me). I am very proud of this plant - I will try to post a photo of the shoots this evening.

My experience last spring was the itohs are very hearty. If you don't see any bloom buds yet you will be fine. The foilage can take the temps. Here is a picture for reassurance.



That was March, 2014. A tree peony already leafing out sticking out of the snow. The plant did fine that year. Itohs are more hearty and tree peonies. If it is below 20 degrees and you have bloom buds I would cover the plant. Make sure to take the cover off during the daylight hours. Good luck and hope this helps ease your mind.

Thanks you both! I woke up to the temp at 24 this morning we are having quite the cold snap. I've tented it for the past few days, but I wanted to share a picture. The weather should let up soon, I don't even want to think about what is going on with the younger tree and herbaceous peonies.... An excuse to try some new varieties at best.






This is the current situation this morning.


And this was a few springs ago. The plant is at least 16 years old.

We use styrofoam rose huts to protect tender plants from late freezes. The dollar stores have styrofoam picnic coolers which work too.( up side down) I use these for transporting plants in cold weather too.

The buds look to be ok to me. If they have been damaged, they would have become blackened. Also, eventhough the temps for your area maybe 24F, it looks like your tree peony is grown in a sheltered spot(a warmer microclimate), protected from winds and cold by your fence. As a result, your tree peony buds are safe from freezing. Had that TP grown in an open field with buds like that exposed to 24F, I think they would have been frozen and turned black or brown.

At worst it might be a season setback, reduced blooming, but it's really rare to lose one completely to a single really cold winter. Oh, the joys of gardening, huh?

Update: the bush made it. I did some last minute staking of one branch that did not work out well. I need to look into better pruning practices.

Great news! They really are pretty!
Thanks for the update.

Your gardens look very nice. That's a long time to have had Cora Louise around, long before it became mass marketed and tissue cultured. Slprice3, have you ever divided it in that time?

This post is from a long time ago, but I thought I'd respond since I have a little update.

Truthfully, I have been calling it Cora Louise because it is the closest thing listed on websites that looks like my plant, but after purchasing other Cora louises (bc it really is a nice plant!) I have started to suspect it is might be something different. Maybe not an itoh, but a one off tree peony? I have purchased a Cora Louise from Monrovia and it just isn't as "beefy".

My mother purchased this plant from the NW flower and garden show here in Seattle, sometimes before 2004 and planted it. I am guessing sometime in the late 90s based on the shopping partner she named :). She has mentioned it was a tiny plant when she got it.

This past spring (2020) I moved the plant (neighbor issue, this was an absolute last resort) - the root system was impacted in the clay we have, so I just wanted to try and keep it as intact as possible for the transplant. The new site has less clay, but also a tiny bit less sun. The plant had been suffering from select shoots wilting after the buds emerged - I wasn't sure if this was nutritional (it sometimes over reacted to summertime watering - the clay) or fungal. I treated it with some fungicide after it was moved and did not see die back the rest of the summer. SO I am praying it makes it through to next spring given the transplant.

This is still my favorite plant in the yard.

Yours is a tree peony, not Itoh "Cora Louise".
"Cora Louise " is normally only 24" tall, only has a small woody part and blooms later than most tree peonies and have different texture on leaves.

Slprice3 said:This post is from a long time ago, but I thought I'd respond since I have a little update.

Truthfully, I have been calling it Cora Louise because it is the closest thing listed on websites that looks like my plant, but after purchasing other Cora louises (bc it really is a nice plant!) I have started to suspect it is might be something different. Maybe not an itoh, but a one off tree peony? I have purchased a Cora Louise from Monrovia and it just isn't as "beefy".

My mother purchased this plant from the NW flower and garden show here in Seattle, sometimes before 2004 and planted it. I am guessing sometime in the late 90s based on the shopping partner she named :). She has mentioned it was a tiny plant when she got it.

This past spring (2020) I moved the plant (neighbor issue, this was an absolute last resort) - the root system was impacted in the clay we have, so I just wanted to try and keep it as intact as possible for the transplant. The new site has less clay, but also a tiny bit less sun. The plant had been suffering from select shoots wilting after the buds emerged - I wasn't sure if this was nutritional (it sometimes over reacted to summertime watering - the clay) or fungal. I treated it with some fungicide after it was moved and did not see die back the rest of the summer. SO I am praying it makes it through to next spring given the transplant.

This is still my favorite plant in the yard.

Thank you for clarifying that - my familiarity with tree peonies vs itohs has grown a LOT (no pun intended) in the past few years. I have Takara, Border charm, and the real cora louise. When I wrote this post two years ago and had no clue that you could get flowers like that on a tree peony and incorrectly assumed that only itohs got the fun stuff.

If this this peony looks like anything you've seen before, I'd love to know. Fairly ashamed I had confused this