People remember peonies as the "cemetery" flower.
Peonies
were planted at gravesites because they bloom around Memorial
Day and live and bloom for many years without much care.
The peony roots that Samuel Wade brought with him to Colorado
in 1881 inspired him to submit the Latin name for peony
as a town name. The post office wouldn't allow the extra
vowel, so Paeonia became Paonia. Some of Wade's original
stock still grows in the town park-a testament to the longevity
of the plants.
There are about 30 species
of peonies, all native to the Northern hemisphere. Peonies
are found in the wild in Siberia, Mongolia and north China
and on the lower slopes of the Himalayas, from Afghanistan
to southern Tibet. Peonies are also native to Georgia,
Armenia, Azerbyjan and Turkey, Syria and Lebanon. These
parts of the world have climates similar to Colorado's.
Fall
planting is best for peonies but you don't often find bare
root plants available for sale locally and must order them
from a catalog or on-line source.
Buy divisions with three
to five eyes (buds). After planting, peonies may take three
years to bloom, but they will mature faster than divisions
with only one or two eyes.
Peonies do not like heavy, clay
soil, but don't mind our altitude or dry climate - they
are quite drought tolerant.
Peonies prefer fertile, loam
soil with good drainage. Amend the soil with compost, well
rotted manure, mulched leaves or bark to improve drainage
and organic matter.
Take time to improve the soil, as the
peonies will be in the same spot for years. They won't
need dividing unless you are planning on moving them to
a new location.
Peonies do best with six hours of full sun
and afternoon shade. The shade helps protect the flowers
from fading too quickly. To plant, dig a hole 12- to 18-inches
deep and 12-inches wide. Mound a cone of soil in the center
of the hole and drape the roots over the cone.
Make sure
the tips of the eyes (swollen pink or reddish buds) are
only one to two inches below the surface. The most common
reason for peonies failing to bloom is being planted too
deeply. Firm the soil around the roots, eliminate air pockets
and water thoroughly.
Water the new peonies deeply every
two weeks and water in the winter if there is little moisture
from snowfall. Use a loose mulch like pine boughs to protect
new shoots from late frosts next spring.
Apply a low nitrogen
fertilizer (e.g. 5-10-5 or 5-10-10) in the spring when
the stems are two to three inches high. Use a fungicide
when the plants emerge in the spring if Botrytis blight
or leaf splotch, both fungal diseases, becomes a problem.
Cut
the herbaceous plants to the ground in the fall and discard
the old tops and stems. Do not cut tree peonies to the
ground - they just drop their leaves in the fall. Irrigate
with a drip or soaker system and avoid overhead watering.
Peonies
make great cut flowers with their showy blossoms, long
stems and wonderful fragrance. Even the seed heads can
be used in dried arrangements. They are also a useful landscape
plant in a mixed border.
Their attractive foliage makes
a great backdrop to later blooming perennials. And no,
peonies don't need ants to open their blooms! The ants
are eating the sweet sap from the blossoms, or if there
are aphids on the plants, the ants are eating the honeydew
from the aphids. |
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