What do you want from your peonies?
For longer season, think beyond the typical pink, white
“The garden starts orange,” Kathleen Gagan said recently, sounding as if she were talking about a summertime bed of daylilies or lilies, or maybe one of marigolds.
The subject, though, was peonies — specifically, the acres and acres of the familiar herbaceous garden varieties at Peony’s Envy, Gagan’s nursery in Bernardsville, New Jersey, where white and shades of pink predominate for several weeks in the spring but are far from the whole story.
In the 16 years since Gagan opened the nursery, her customers have often begun conversations by telling her that they want only pink and white blossoms. “And only 3-foot-tall peonies with big, full flower forms,” she said.
In other words, the quintessential peonies.
“I always tell them, ‘Take one step, or two, outside your comfort zone,’ ” she said.
Maybe it’s not surprising that someone who named her nursery using a provocative homophone would advocate a bit of daring. She does, particularly when it comes to suggesting that we refuse to settle for the week or so of delight that a solitary peony cultivar offers.
“We wait a whole year for peony season — and brides rejoice and moms are happy and teachers get bouquets of flowers — and then …,” she said, her voice trailing off, as if the very idea of missing any moment of peony potential was unthinkable.
Add a few peony varieties chosen specifically for their flowering times,
and nearly a month of tall, sun-loving herbaceous Paeonia lactiflora and its hybrids becomes possible.
Your herbaceous season could begin with the coral-colored hybrids, and, if you stray into crosses made with tree peonies — into the intersectional or Itoh peonies — it could end in a flash of yellow, another unexpected color.
Don’t decide on looks alone when you’re paging through the offerings within a genus. Think “early, midseason and late” and incorporate some of each for an extended garden showing. (That’s sound advice, as well, for ordering daffodils this fall, or daylilies.)
What do you want from a peony? Whether it’s the simplicity of Krinkled White, with its single flowers and bold yellow centers, or the crazy triple-decker of pink-white-pink that is
Sorbet — two very different midseason selections — there is a flower form for every taste.
But fall, when bare-root peonies are sold, is decision time. It’s also when we need to do something about the peonies that aren’t performing well. As frost approaches, we plant our new arrivals or divide and transplant those in need of a fresh start.
So your peonies didn’t bloom much?
One possible reason: youth. Recently planted peony roots, including those you dig, divide and replant, won’t fill the garden with flowers next spring. And maybe not even the one after, said Gagan.
You may not even get substantial aboveground growth, because the division — made yourself, or bought — is settling in.
“The first year is all about
the root,” she said. “The second year is all about the shoot. The third year is all about the flowers. Yes, it takes three springs.”
Peonies require winter chill to flower. When they grow but don’t bloom well, the problem is often that they’ve been planted too deep. If the eyes — those pink, growing tips — are too far underground, they may not receive the winter chill they need.
“People tell me: ‘I planted it exactly right. I was really careful,’ ” Gagan said. “And so I ask if they mulch their garden, and of course the answer is yes.”
Oops. She doesn’t mulch the peonies.
Another culprit when blooming is paltry: insufficient sunlight. In that case, the plant may be light on foliage, too. The tall herbaceous lactifloras and their hybrids need full-day sun. Older gardens, where
shrubs and trees have grown to shade nearby perennials, see this version of decline.
Flowers that flop
Do we really need to provide support for our tall herbaceous peonies? When this common question is raised, Gagan invokes Don Hollingsworth, founder of Hollingsworth Peonies, who has been a leading breeder for more than a half-century.
“He used to call them ‘carpet peonies,’ ” she said, “because unless they were supported, they were on the ground.”
You may get away with that with the early bloomers, which generally have lighter-weight flowers, including that orange moment from Coral Charm, Coral Supreme, Coral Sunset and others. But even they can be trampled by a heavy rain.
Most peonies need support, unless you’re cutting all the flower stems for bouquets — and it’s fine to harvest every last one. Just leave at least one-third of the foliage on the plant, Gagan advised.
Another way to stretch peony season, or at least flower-arrangement season: Cut the flowers when the buds are just cracking open and showing their first hint of color. Then stand the stems in water and refrigerate them for up to three weeks or so, gradually taking some out to enjoy.
In a garden border, use peony rings with gridlike tops — the largest diameter available, at least 18 inches — that the stems will grow through.
Don’t wait until spring, when the plant is emerging, to put the support in place. Instead, when you’re doing fall cutbacks, leave 1 inch of the old stem to mark each plant, Gagan said, placing the ring over the stubs. (Throw the cut stems away — a critical step in preventing overwintering fungal disease.)
Come spring, as the plant reaches about 2 feet high and starts to bud, push the legs of the metal support securely into the soil at the edges of the ring that you laid atop the sleeping plant in the fall. Then lift the ring up and attach it to the legs. Putting the legs on the ring is a two-person job: One person holds the ring while the other does the attaching.
Looking after acres of peonies that are your livelihood means setting such guidelines and following them — watching carefully for any signs of trouble and responding quickly.
“If it’s broken, fix it,” Gagan said. “If it’s getting too much shade, move it. If it has a disease, send photos to the diagnostic lab at the local extension, then treat accordingly.”