Tree Peony

I just received my order from Kelly's Nursery today and when i opened the bag and checked everything I was surprised at my Tree Peony it was just the root with some short coming out of it. Will this grow into a tree or will it grow into a bush?

I do have to say some of my order was OK and some of it was iffy, would I order from them again after seeing what you get I would have to say I would have to be hard up to do so. My wife looked at it and was very upset with the way they looked.

Must be a better place out there.

One more question for you I got 2 Tree Hydrangea and one was about 3 foot tall and the other was 6 inches tall and it had broken lambs on it and now it is about 3 inches tall will it grow? I do have to say everything was alive.

Is this the Kelly's nursery you bought from? http://davesgarden.com/products/gwd/c/239/ They don't have a very good rating in Watchdog so I would definitely not buy from them again if I were you. At the very least, there are definitely better places to buy things (the Watchdog 30 on the first page of the Garden Watchdog are a great place to start: http://davesgarden.com/products/gwd/ )

Tree peonies aren't really trees, they're really more like shrubs. As far as the hydrangea, it's hard to say how it'll do--I'd probably put it in a pot and give it some TLC for a while, they're pretty tough so if it's still alive, hopefully it'll recover and grow. But they're not really trees either unless you prune/train them that way--if you let them grow how they want, they'll be shrubs too.

Check out Klehm's Songsparrow catalog if you want a great Tree Peony. http://www.songsparrow.com

The "tree hydrangeas" are probably Hydrangeas paniculatas such as 'Limelight'.

http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/49376/

Or it could be a hydrangea trained as a tree. Hydrangea paniculatas are really shrubs/bushes. A hydrangea paniculata trained as a standard (tree) is usually a shrub in which a strong shoot was tied to a stake and all the other branches and shoots were pruned away.

I see that you're in Wauseon Ohio. That's very close to me and close to the Anderson's. I'm sure you've been to Anderson's in Maumee, Ohio. May I suggest that you visit Anderson's garden center and see what a true tree hydrangea really is. Or a healthy 'Limelight' for that matter. Anderson's sells only top quality nursery stock, like many, many local independant nurserys you're close to such as Oak Park on Airport Hwy, Nature's Corner at Angola and Holland Sylvania, or Hatfields on Central Ave. The list goes on and on. Believe me my car automatically brakes to a stop at all of them! Shop a local nursery first to see what a plant should be.

MOST IMPORTANTLY, if you want to mail order, check out the GardenWatchdog http://davesgarden.com/products/gwd/ here first as ecrane3 points out. I buy at least 75% of my stuff online or from catalogues because of the wider selection available. Using the GardenWatchdog can save you a lot of money and disappointment. I never order aything by mail without first checking out the company on GardenWatchdog. It's saved me a ton of money and problems.

To answer your question about your "tree hydrangeas" most likely, if planted and cared for correctly they'll grow. It'll take a while, but they'll grow.

I bought a couple of tree peonys from Van Bourgeon (something like that) a couple
years ago. They were packaged w/o any protection and got banged up terribly in
transit. Neither survived. I tried planting them in a container first but not long enough.
Nurse it along the first year or two and maybe it'll survive. I find its much better to
buy locally whenever possible and go with the best rated source possible, even if the
price is higher. Cheap plants turn out to be expensive dead sticks all too often.

I have gotten very small hydrangea's that grew into fine specimens. Just baby them
along too.

Tam

A couple of years ago I received a tree peony from VB as a gift. It, too, was broken (actually they forced it into the box). I pampered it for awhile but it never amounted to anything. It is long gone!