Tree Peony 'Alice Harding'

This prolific bush will bring you years of pleasure. Your summers and autumns will soon be filled with flamboyant, double, lemon flowers. Once established, the 20cm blooms are abundant on the lush foliage and have a sweet perfume.

This heritage Lemoine Tree Peony was bred in France, in 1935, it was one of the first yellow hybrids. It is a cross of P. lutea and P. ‘Yaso-okina’. Because of their size, the flowers nod daintily, so if you have the opportunity you may wish to plant it in an elevated garden position. Or you can elevate them with ties or stakes/plant rings.

Tree Peony ‘Alice Harding’ can flower in the first year. It is also known as ‘Kinko’ and ‘Jin Huang’.

Tree Peonies bring imperial splendour to your garden. They also make wonderful cut flowers. They are a great choice for small gardens, because they are so slow growing, don’t take up much space and the flowers are a great focal point. They are great for large gardens too, because of their lasting display and once established they can be left to their own devices and you can take that time to care for other plants.

Tree Peonies look exotic and temperamental, and yet they are pretty hardy, and grow well in Cool to Temperate Australian gardens that receive frosts.

Tree Peonies need cold winters and hot summers for best flowers. We recommend you treat your Tree Peonies a bit like hungry teenage boys and feed them well! Water to establish, then only if rainfall is low. They have impressive dry tolerance once established. Best planted with protection from the hot afternoon sun and don’t mind a filtered light position, though too much shade will result in less flowers.

They need well drained soil and a permanent garden position. Once established they will pretty much take care of themselves, the only pruning you need to do is aesthetic, you just need to add some fertiliser so you can enjoy the best of the blooms, and if the frost is very hard where you live, add a winter mulch.

Tree Peonies differ from Herbaceous Peonies in that they have a woody base that remains year round and which magically transforms into a shrub with the warmth of spring. Peonies on the other hand die all the way back to the ground.