For Release May 30, 2004

Perpetual Peony Pandemonium

AGRI-VIEWS
by Chuck Otte, Geary County Extension Agent

For some reason I just always associate Memorial Day with peonies. In some years, peak peony blossom time coincides with Memorial Day, some years it doesn't. But shortly after Memorial Day you are going to have to take care of your peonies to make sure that they continue to bloom for years to come.

Peonies are spring flowering perennial herbaceous plants, that are very hardy. They thrive in most of the soils and climates that Kansas can throw at it. Properly cared for, peony plants can easily live for decades. In fact, several years ago I took a root cutting from my grandmother's peony bush that had been in the same place for over 75 years.

Peonies freeze down to the ground every year and all above ground growth starts over from ground level each year, with the exception of tree peonies which are a different critter only marginally adapted to our climate. Like most spring flowering perennials, how well it blooms this year is directly related to how well it was taken care of after it bloomed last year.

Most of the plant growth and all of the flower growth that those peonies made this spring related to how much food the plant was able to store up last summer and early fall. This spring, once the ground started warming up, elongating stems emerged from crown buds, or eyes, poked through the soil surface, and then split open allowing the leafy shoot to grow rapidly. Once it starts to bloom, the peony plant has all the leaf material that it is going to have. All those leaves and flower buds were developed at the microscopic level late last summer.

Once the flowers get through blooming, you need to remove them so the plant doesn't make seed. If left alone, they will develop seeds. But unless you want to try your hand at peony breeding, you don't want your peonies to waste energy making seeds. You want that energy to go into storing food in the roots. A light application, about one fourth cup per plant, of a general garden fertilizer similar to 13-13-13 should be applied now, if you haven't yet fertilized your plants. Ideally you would fertilize once in the fall after the foliage has died down and again in the spring about the time the shoots emerge with one half the rate I just mentioned.

Next you want to protect the foliage until it dies naturally in the fall. That means you can't mow them off. If you remove the leaves before they die down on their own in the fall, you will have reduced the number and size of blossoms that the plant will produce next year. Many people want to mow the peonies down after they get through blooming. Doing this once every few years probably won't make a big impact, but doing this every year will slowly reduce the plant to nothing.

If your peony bush has stopped blooming, or you've noticed that the blossoms are getting fewer and smaller, then the crown of the plant is probably too deep. Peonies are very sensitive to depth of planting and if the crown buds, or eyes are not one to two inches below the soil surface, they will not bloom. Over time, dirt and organic matter can settle in around the base of a plant requiring the plant to be lifted. Sometimes simply raking away the built up dirt will help.

Lifting peonies, replanting them or dividing them should be done in the fall about the time they are going dormant, usually in September or October. Be sure to replant them at the proper depth. Peonies can provide many years of blooms with just a minor investment in care!

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