Peony harvest: growing fast

Botanical garden horticulture assistant Shannon Pearce shows off the peony plots

Late June and early July find technicians at the Georgeson Botanical Garden snipping peony stalks throughout the day, taking painstaking care in handling each stem to determine the best post-harvesting procedures. “There are so many different methods of handling,” Professor Pat Holloway said. “No one had tried comparing them.”

Examining 400 stems a day, the researchers observe buds that wait in the sun before being placed in water (one hour and three hours) and buds that go straight into cold water the moment they are cut. Clippings are taken to a 34-degree cooler where they are stored. Some are wrapped in newspaper; some are kept in water an entire week. Once the stems are taken from the cooler the technicians measure when the flowers open up and how long the blossoms last before the petals begin to fall. There are 18 different combinations of handling methods, and all the different scenarios are being compared. “It’s not rocket science; it’s real practical stuff,” Holloway said. “People usually do what works best for them.”

Nearly 80 varieties of peonies grow at the botanical garden. The cool season crop comes in a rainbow of colors and shapes and usually begins to emerge from buds by mid-June in Fairbanks. Bloom time is later in other areas of the state, as late as mid-August in southern parts of Alaska.

Peonies have a place in Dr. Pat Holloway's office

Holloway is excited about the experiment because it will help move forward Alaska’s first horticultural export. “The research shows it can be successful,” she said. There has been so much interest in the crop since Holloway delved into it in 2000 that today there are 33 Alaska peony growers statewide, 13 who have at least 500 peonies in the ground. The Interior has seven members in the Alaska Peony Growers Association. “People in the flower industry are always looking for niches,” Holloway said. The beauty of this one is that peonies bloom in Alaska later than they do in the Lower 48 and the demand for them has increased.

Holloway and a cut flower grower from the Lower 48 were both speaking at a greenhouse conference in 1998 and got into a conversation about a cut flower that Alaskans could grow and ship to Outside markets. They jumped from delphiniums to peonies and that’s when something definitely clicked. Holloway got funding from a Sen. Ted Stevens earmark for crop research and the project was off and running.

When Holloway (pictured at left) published variety trials about the peonies she received a call from London requesting 100,000 stems per week. “I told him check back in a few years,” Holloway said. In 2008 the first commercial shipment of peonies went from Colleen James in Homer to a buyer in Texas at a price of $4 per stem.

Peonies, named after Paeon, physician to the Greek gods, are one of the oldest cultivated ornamental plants, dating back nearly 1,400 years in China. “It’s an old-fashioned flower that’s been around forever and it is enjoying a resurgence of popularity,” Holloway said. Peonies are very popular for wedding decorations.

Holloway’s advice for growing peonies is simple: They don’t tolerate wet soil, so they don’t do well in permafrost areas; an area with well-drained soil is ideal. “Peonies are amazingly resilient,” said GBG horticulture assistant Shannon Pearce.

At the Peony Growers Association Aug. 2-4 in Kenai, Homer, and Soldotna, Holloway will present the latest findings of her research. With funding dwindling, Holloway is worried about the future of the project. “It’s uncertain,” she said.

Further reading:
"Peonies: An Economic Background for Alaska Flower Growers," by James D. Auer and Joshua Greenberg, SNRAS/AFES Miscellaneous Publication MP 2009-08, June 2009 (PDF)