George Vorauer

We note with great sadness the passing of a very special peony-lover. 

Visitors braved frigid temps (8 degrees with a vicious wind) to attend the Peony Walkabout. George Vorauer - in hat - explains the history of the collection and tells people about the Friends of the Farm who help maintain the peony beds.

George Eric Vorauer age 79 passed away on Thursday, May 15th, 2008. Beloved husband of Regina Abreu. Loving father of Andre (Marilia) and the Late Christina (Bruno Poirier). Cherished grandfather of Eric and Nicolas. Dear brother of Herbert (Maria Luiza). Lovingly remembered by niece Barbara and Maria Regina. George Vorauer was a member of the Peony Group of the Friends of the Central Experimental Farm, Ottawa, and the Canadian Peony Society.  A beautiful Ménard/D'Aoust peony was named after George in 2007, but he did not live to see its first bloom in his garden.  A Mass In Memory of George will be held Tuesday, May 27th at Immaculate Heart of Mary Church, 1758 Alta Vista Drive at 10 a.m. In memoriam donations to the Friends of the Central experimental Farm appreciated.

Stealth Coon

An old, loose clothesline in our backyard was perfect for hanging feeders. The line was so loose that even squirrels were deterred. Then mysteriously, the feeders were being emptied on the ground. As well, the feeders were being moved about on the line. One day I spied a young raccoon navigating the line upside down, hand over hand. He jumped off the line when I ran out of the house screaming at it, confident that I had scared him well. About 10 minutes later I was alerted by the squeak, squeak of the clothesline. There was that rascal standing on the deck railing, reeling in the feeders!

Irene Bouris
Sparta, Ont

Ken Clare

It was with surprise and much sadness to hear recently of the death of Ken Clare last October.  Ken was the owner of what he liked to call "The Ultimate Peony Super Store" also known as peonygarden.com   He was quite a character and a legend in Canadian peony history.

Ken undoubtedly had the largest collection of peonies in Canada.  He started out growing them in pop bottles but later moved them to several area fields he was borrowing when his collection had outgrown his overwintering facilities.  Pop bottle culture may have sounded a little odd to many peony growers but it was an innovative solution that worked very well.  I was lucky enough to see Ken's tree peonies when they were in bottles and displayed on a wooden stadium structure.  They were a beautiful site to behold on an early spring day.

Hard work, a sense of humour and a generous spirit are what I will remember Ken for.  When I was learning to graft tree peonies, Ken invited me to take as may scions as I wanted from his plants.  He would take nothing in return.  Each time I visited he would offer me some rare cultivar to take home.  The 'Renown' tree peony I received in the pop bottle many years ago still grows well in my field.

Ken Clare began Peonygarden.com in 2003 in the little town of Frankford, Ontario after retiring from the cabinet business.  Ken grew many hundreds of varieties and it could only be described as a private peony museum.  He had a true passion for flowers and imported peonies from all over the world including Europe, China, Japan, even New Zealand.  After his illness and passing in 2008 the business was moved to Alberton, Ontario to a two acre farm run by his son Mike and his family.

Lindsay D'Aoust

Dr. Eugene Fox

It is with sadness that we note the passing of Dr. Eugene Fox on January 14,2007 in Edmonton, Alberta.  Although he was better known in horticultural circles as a lily collector and hybridizer, and as a past president of the North American Lily Society, Gene was also a peony aficionado and a long-time member of the Canadian Peony Society, and he provided much advice about setting up the Alberta chapter of the CPS.  His enthusiasm, generosity, and expertise will be missed.

Marvin Joslin

Marvin Joslin of Stony Plain, Alberta, passed away December 31, 2006.  He was a CPS member and although he is best known for his involvement with lilies, he propagated peonies at Parkland Perennials and more recently operated Estate Perennials. 

`Jean Ericksen`

This peony was selected and registered by Marvin Joslin, formerly of Parkland Perennials (now Estate Perennials) in 1999, to honor its originator.  This midseason Japanese cultivar has strong 38" stems and is floriferous and vigorous, developing silver-tipped staminodes with age.  Mrs. Jean Ericksen farmed with her husband at Wauchope, SK, and became internationally famous for her lily breeding.  She tried breeding many other flowers, including peonies. This seedling was given away to Parkland Perennials when it was still tiny, in the hope that it would prove valuable because of its prolific blooming parent, also an un-named seedling which she obtained from a penpal in Ontario.

Métis Mystery Peony

The mystery peony discovered at Reford Gardens in Grand - Métis, Quebec was named 'Elsie Reford', after the creator of one of Canada's foremost gardens.  After much debate it was decided that this hybrid was a naturally occurring cross between Paeonia mlokosewitschii and P wittmanniana.  The peony has been registered with the American Peony Society, at a public ceremony on July  1, 2006.  A fitting tribute to an exceptional collector.

Bloom Date 2004

Taken from The Peony - C to C
May 2005 Vol 8 Issue 2

by Michael Denny

     It was a very good year for the bloom date project and I want to thank all of those who participated. In 2004, we collected over 1900 observations on the bloom dates of 600 different cultivars.  This brings the overall totals to over 7200 observations on about 950 cultivars.

     Not all of the observations received this year were for observations taken in 2004.  There were several treasure troves of date from earlier years.  The publicity in the APS Bulletin helped to locate several individuals who had been carefully measuring their bloom dates in earlier years.

     It is important to have many observations on each cultivar.  I am pleased that we currently have 10 or more observations on bloom dates for 321 cultivars.  For another 154 cultivars, we have five to nine observations.  The goal is to have 500-600 for which there are ten or more observations.  It should be feasible to reach this goal in the next three years.  There is nothing unique about ten observations.  In my judgement, this amount of data allows us to have considerable confidence in the bloom date.

     There are still many cultivars, 251, with only one observation.  I have kept these in the tables but one should view the data for these cultivars with considerable caution.  As we obtain more observations on these cultivars, the bloom dates may change significantly.  There will always be many cultivars that are not widely grown for which we can not obtain numerous bloom date observations.  However if we keep collecting data we should be able to provide information on all of the widely grown cultivars.

     Mrs. Anne Oveson from Wallowa, Oregon sent me a hand-written list of over 700 bloom date observations.  Mrs. Oveson bred and registered the peonies 'Caroline Rose' and ' Mary Gretchen'.  She collected the data from her own garden and from her sister's garden in Walla Walla, Washington.  The data are from the years 1999 to 2002.  Each sister had from 100 to 150 cultivars and many were common to both gardens.  This provided four to eight new observations on the cultivars that they grew in common.

     Mrs Oveson's data are the main reason why we have twice as many new observations in 2004 than we had last year.  While we can not expect such sources to appear every year, we can continue to add more observations.

     Another historical data set was provided by Bruce Powers of Wisconsin who has data from 1996 - 2004.  To these we can add an unidentified source from Cut Bank, Montana who supplied data from 2001.  These three sources provided one-half of the observations this year.  I am trying to obtain data from another Ohio source who may have data for 50 cultivars from 1993 - 2004.

     The project depends heavily on a core set of Canadian Society contributors.   Val Ames, Brian Porter, Lindsay D'Aoust, Linda Goh and Nick Visser have provided data for three or more years.  Another dozen individuals contributed data for one or two years and we thank them all.  We can always use new contributors.

     As more data are collected there are a number of extensions to the project.  First, we would like to introduce a standard system of describing the bloom period of peonies.  This will avoid the current confusion that arises when different nurseries and different peony books describe the same cultivar inconsistently.  One possibility is to classify peonies by the week in which they bloom with week one being the very early ones and week seven being the latest.

     We know that variations in the weather cause most of the variations in bloom dates at a given location as well as the differences between locations.  We hope to look more formally at this process.

     There is more information about the  project at the we site http://peonybloomdate.com  The data
 are available and may be downloaded and there are several articles.

     If you want to collect data this year, we welcome your help.  The process is simple.  You should only collect data for cultivars whose identity is known and that are mature plants growing in relatively full sun.  Record the calendar date of the first open bloom.  Keep a list and send them to me at mjdenny@sympatico.ca