Paeonia 'CORAL SUNSET' common peony

Another coral coloured perennial peony comes from the same breeders as its sister seedling Coral Charm. Its name is Coral Sunset and it fully describes its colour beauty. The flowers are semi or fully double, rich salmon to coral pink with light yellow shades that appear apricot orange in afternoon setting sun. They are borne on 60-70 cm tall, quite strong stems, often from late May already. Deciduous leaves are rich green, deeply lobed, and make the plant very attractive even when the flowering has passed. Bred by Samuel Wissing and Roy Klehm it bloomed for the first time in 1965.

These peonies are great plants not only for perennial beds and borders, they also look very elegant combined with shrubs and trees to soften their woody structures. They also make beautiful cut flowers, though, they never last more than a week. They are one of the easiest perennials to grow – just make sure you don’t put them too deep and you won’t have a trouble with them - they can take almost any kind of weather caprice and full neglect. Peonies are long-lived plants, there can be found some 100 years old specimens in royal gardens and arboretums.

Peonies need fertile, well-drained, preferably moist soil. If you want to be really nice to them water them freely on hot and dry days and feed them annually after they roll up foliage completely for profusion of flowers and healthy appearance. Still, this extra care is not required, once established they will grow without help. They don’t like transplanting. If you need to reduce the clump size, remove the unwanted part leaving the rest of the rhizomes in soil, untouched. Fully hardy to about -34°C (USDA zone 4).

Last update 13-05-2013