Elegant spring blooms that come back year after year: peonies are a great choice for your garden. These famous perennials, which are prized for their enormous double flowers, blush colors, and heavy perfume, are expensive to buy as a cut flower.
There are a few easy steps you can take to ensure beautiful blooms, a perfect shape, and a wonderful smell from your peonies. Some plants have been known to bloom for 50 years or more with proper care!
Peonies come in a variety of varieties
Two types of peonies exist tree peonies and herbaceous ones. It’s about October when Paeonia lactiflora (herb-peonies) die back to the ground after the growing season. This year’s tree peonies have a more woody top growth that can be seen above the ground all year long.
As they mature and become established, tree peonies can produce hundreds of blooms all season long. If you have a lot of room in your garden, consider planting a tree peony.
Both tree peony and herbaceous peonies benefit from being protected from the wind, but the latter requires more attention. A peony plant support is a great way to avoid broken peony branches and ugly stakes in your garden.
In order to grow herbaceous peonies, here are some tips.
For the greatest results, plant your herbaceous peonies in full sun, but they can also flourish in semi-shade. Dig in some well-rotted manure or a specific peony fertilizer before you start your flower bed, and make sure it’s in a well-drained area of your garden. Keeping peony crowns wet for an extended period of time will cause them to decay.
Dig a large hole and plant your peony such that the blossoming ‘eyes’ on the plant crown are about 2cm below the level of the soil. Planting them too deep can cause flowering to be delayed since the flowering tips will have a difficult time shoving their way up through the soil. Between October and March is the ideal time to plant bare-root herbaceous peonies. Early spring is the ideal time to sow potted garden-ready plants.
Herbaceous peonies bloom from the end of spring to the beginning of summer every year. After three years, your plants will be well-established and will produce a wide variety of beautiful flowers. ‘
Instructions on how to set up a tree peony garden
To give your tree peony a chance to establish itself during the winter, plant it in mid-autumn. Like herbaceous peonies, they prefer full light and rich, free-draining soils to grow well.
As with herbaceous varieties, plant your tree peony far deeper. You must have at least 10-15 cm of soil below the notch showing where stem and rootstock are grafted together. Flowering and establishment may be delayed if your tree peony is planted too shallowly.
Wait at least two to three years before you begin pruning your plant. Take a look at our simple tutorial if you’re not sure how to prune your tree peony. Early spring through mid-summer are prime times for tree peonies to bloom, and deadheading them often can help them set more blooms.
Your mature tree peony can be divided or layered to produce new plants. Divide a mature plant or induce root growth by pulling down longer branches to the soil level. However, hybrid plants will not grow true to their parent seeds and must be purchased if grown from seed obtained from tree peony species.
When it comes to growing peonies, which cultivars are the best?
Peonies ‘Double Pink’ and ‘Pink Hawaiian Coral’ are great options for cutting flowers with huge, double blooms. Both look stunning in bouquets and a few stems may fill a vase to awe-inspiring effect.
Luoyang Hong is one of the best tree peonies for producing ruffled magenta blooms. Color contrast can be achieved by planting ‘Feng Dan Bai’ next to the basic fragrant white-flowered variety.
Tree peony ‘Rockii Mixed,’ a rare opportunity to sow your own, is also available if you’re interested in trying to grow your own from seed.
Peonies can be grown in a variety of locations
It’s a great idea to use peonies to line walks or create a modest hedge. Bushy and attractive with glossy green leaves in the summer and purplish-red or gold in the fall, a peony is as majestic and dignified as any blooming shrub after its magnificent bloom.
The flowers of peonies, columbines, baptisias, and veronicas all work nicely together in mixed borders, as do the flowers of irises and roses. White peonies can be paired with yellow irises and forget-me-nots, while pink peonies can be paired with blue Nepeta or violets.
In a nutshell, how to cultivate peony
- Peonies thrive in full sun in well-drained, rich soil.
- The buds of your herbaceous peony should be 2 cm below the soil line when you plant them in the ground.
- Place the grafted stem area around 10-15cm below the soil level when planting tree peony.
- During the blooming season, make sure to remove any wasted blossoms.
