A Marriage Made in Flower Heaven

April 6th, 2021

   The horrors of World War II were still fresh as Japanese botanist Dr. Toichi Itoh focused on an apparent pipe dream that had long eluded plant breeders.

‘Bartzella’ Itoh peony in bloom.

   Itoh was determined to cross herbaceous peonies with tree peonies to come up with a hybrid that offered the best traits – and none of the shortcomings – of both.

   He made at least 20,000 crosses over the years. None of them worked, a result of the two plants’ genetic barriers as well as the snag that herbaceous peonies bloom a few weeks sooner than tree peonies.

   Then in 1948, one of Itoh’s crosses miraculously produced seeds that germinated into something special – the very first of what today is known as an “Itoh peony.”

   You’ll find several varieties of this “intersectional” marriage of herbaceous and tree peonies in catalogs and garden centers these days. They even showed up last spring at Lowe’s.

   At the lowest I’ve seen them, Itoh peonies go for $50 per plant.

   They’re definitely not cheap… but they are spectacular enough performers that this frugal gardener plans to invest in one this spring.

   I’m looking at adding ‘Bartzella’ to a prime, front-step location near my front door.

   ‘Bartzella’ has soft yellow petals with a sort of peachy-red throat.

   Like all Itoh types, the flowers are huge – close to eight inches across – and in top form for about three weeks in late spring.

   Itoh plants are also dense, bushy, and somewhat more dissected in leaf form like tree peonies.

   They grow nearly three feet tall and wide and aren’t prone to the mildew and leaf-spot diseases that make most herbaceous peonies look ratty by mid-summer.

   Maybe best of all, peonies of any kind are seldom bothered by deer – a problem that’s drastically limited what I can plant in my unfenced front yard.

   Though not the original, ‘Bartzella’ is one of the most highly regarded of the Itoh hybrids.

   It won top honors in 2006 from the American Peony Society and was good enough to earn a 2021 Gold Medal award from the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society.

   ‘Bartzella’ is the only peony on PHS’s Gold Medal list, while ‘Garden Treasure’ (another yellow bloomer) is the only other Itoh variety to win American Peony Society top honors (in 1996).

   Sadly, Dr. Itoh never got to see his creation bloom. He died in 1956 – eight years before the crosses bloomed for the first time in 1964.

   Two years later, New York accountant and amateur peony breeder Louis Smirnow acquired rights to the plants from Itoh’s family. He brought them to the U.S. and patented them, leading to new variations that were largely collector plants that went for up to $1,000 a pop.

   The Canadian breeding company Planteck was instrumental in bringing Itoh peonies to the mass market more than a decade ago when it began propagating them through tissue culture. That lowered the price to the still-not-so-cheap level we have today.

   Varieties now include the red-blooming ‘Scarlet Heaven,’ the lavender-pink ‘Takara,’ the pink-and-white, double-petaled ‘Cora Louise,’ the light-pink ‘First Arrival,’ and the apricot ‘Julia Rose.’

   All are at least solid performers from what I hear and read, and all are easily cold-hardy to Harrisburg winters but die back in winter like herbaceous peonies.

   Let’s just hope the breeding work didn’t make them tastier to deer. I won’t be happy donating a $50 plant for lunch.