Author: Site Editor Publish Time: 2019-10-29 Origin: Site
In the early Eastern Han Dynasty tombs excavated in Wuwei County, Gansu Province, dozens of medical bamboo slips were found, among which there are records of peony treating blood stasis. Peony originated in the mountains and hills between the Yangtze River Basin and the Yellow River Basin in China. People found its medicinal and ornamental value, and turned wild into domestic. Since the Northern and Southern Dynasties, the cultivation history has been 1500 years. In the long-term cultivation process, peony has undergone mutation, and many varieties with bright flowers have emerged. People pay more and more attention to them. The cultivation scope of peony has expanded from the provinces of the Yangtze River and the Yellow River basin to the whole country. Now it has expanded to the northeast and southeast of China, as well as Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Tibet, Taiwan and other places.
In Song Dynasty, the center of peony cultivation moved from Chang'an to Luoyang. The cultivation techniques are more systematic and perfect, the research on peony has been greatly improved, and a number of theoretical monographs have emerged. This paper describes the cultivation and management of peony, including land selection, flowering, irrigation, budding, pest control, frost prevention, grafting, breeding and other cultivation methods, and summarizes a set of mature experience. It can be seen from this that cultivation of peony was very strict at that time, from site selection to planting are very particular, which may be one of the reasons why Luoyang peony can be a world-class peony.
In the Northern Song Dynasty, the scale of Luoyang peony was unprecedented. At that time, Luoyang people not only loved and planted flowers, but also were good at cultivating new varieties. Peony is not good without grafting. They used grafting method to fix budding and fine varieties, which was the most outstanding contribution of the Northern Song Dynasty.
During the Southern Song Dynasty, the cultivation centers of peony moved from Luoyang and Kaifeng in the north to Tianpeng (Pengxian, Sichuan), Chengdu and Hangzhou in the south. In these plantations, the better varieties in the north were introduced and crossed with a small number of local varieties (natural hybridization). Then more and better ecotype varieties suitable for southern climate conditions were selected by grafting and sowing methods. Lu You's works described more than 70 varieties of peony in Luoyang. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the cultivation scope of Chinese peony was expanded to Bozhou in Anhui, Caozhou in Shandong, Sine in Beijing, Guangxi and Hezhou in Heilongjiang. This shows that the peony went north to Heilongjiang and south to Guangxi.
In the Qing Dynasty, smoked flowers were very popular. According to "Seven Notes to Caozhou Peony", "The Caoqiao Bridge outside Youanmen, where people live near the spring in the north, grow flowers in the winter and keep warm fires. In mid-October, peony entered the imperial court." According to the Five Miscellaneous Figures, "When the dynasty moves into the imperial court, there are always timely flowers, but they are all hidden in the cellar, surrounded by fire. In the middle of winter, there are peony flowers, and their workforce is dozens of gold." At this time, the technology of flower induction has reached a fairly high level, and this technology is still in use today.
Peony is not only a favorite flower of the Chinese people, but also cherished by people all over the world. More than 20 countries such as Japan, France, Britain, the United States, Italy, Australia, Singapore, Korea, the Netherlands, Germany, Canada and so on all have peony cultivation. Among them, Japan, France, Britain, the United States and other countries have the largest number of peony horticultural varieties and cultivation.
