Earlybird
‘Earlybird’ is one of the first Saunders peonies to bloom and is such a welcome and cheery sight each spring. Mine is planted next to ‘Nosegay’ whose bloom season overlaps with it. The foliage is echoed in the Thuja occidentalis ‘Enlighted’ planted behind it (which will no doubt outgrow its given space).
| Cultivar: | Earlybird |
| Year: | 1939 |
| Seedling No: | 8807. Page 143 of Saunders’ notebook III |
| Parentage: | 23: tenuifolia X anomala woodwardi |
| Flower: | Color: | red (“fine unfading red” – A.P. Saunders) |
| Form: | single, 1 row of petals | |
| Blooms: | Week 2 | |
| Carpels: | 3, red, woolly | |
| Stigmas: | red | |
| Disc: | white, inconspicuous | |
| Stamens: | filaments pink, abundant stamens | |
| Plant: | Habit: | rounded bush |
| Foliage color: | medium green | |
| Foliage form: | very finely divided, intermediate between parents | |
| Height: | 34″ in 2021 | |
| Recommendation: | Highly recommended |
| Availability: | Many specialty nurseries |
