Happy is the gardener who places his plants correctly in the beginning. His garden grows old along with him – and gracefully. Each spring and fall it can be said of both, “The best is yet to be.”
To this person the peony offers everything, for the peony is a plant of permanence. It comes as close to being ideal as any plant you can name. Once a peony has been set out in a favorable location, its performance will improve with each blooming season and the flowers will increase in size and perfection.
But peonies are not compatible with the owner who likes to keep shifting and changing plants about. When peonies are divided every two or three years they never get a chance to produce a really satisfactory crop of typical blooms. If you yield to the temptation to move a large established peony clump, it will never be the same again, for the root system will be damaged.
Of course, if you wish to go to the trouble and expense of taking up an enormous ball of earth, assuming that your soil is cohesive enough, and that your equipment and skill arc adequate to keep the whole intact, it can be done. Such a plant-soil mass would likely weigh 300 pounds or more. When you attempt to move peonies with only a cubic foot or so of soil (as is usually the case), the root tips are severed and at each of the broken points a witches broom or circular mass of new roots will develop. These new roots are soon engaged in a fight for survival, strangling and choking one another off.
Some peonies are especially suited to use as accents in the landscape, either singly or in groups of three or five. Place these plants where they will remain free from the domination of shade or the encroaching roots of trees or shrubs, And, if you can, place the peonies in locations you pass frequently, such as the path to the garage or the entrance to an outdoor living area.
The most handsome peony I know of for such use is FLAMINGO. The name indicates the color of its bewitching semi-double blooms with gold centers. It is the plant, though, that I am thinking of, for accent plants should be beautiful even without flowers. Flamingo is unique in every way. It flowers very early, the leaves hare character of their own. And the plant itself is smaller and more formal than those of other varieties. You might compare Flamingo to other peonies as you would compare a clipped dwarf yew to the more spreading type. Then too, the leaves start at ground level and the flowers open at one time and are many.
If your home has a large window, consider the view from it when you plan the garden outside. For the areas farthest from your view choose peonies in colors which can be seen at a distance.
CHERRY HILL is a peony with this virtue of visibility. You can see it “a mile away,” even though the color is quite dark. Not at all on the bluish side, nor garish like grandma’s “piney,” it is still capable of drawing your attention before any of the others. Since it is extremely tall, it should always be placed at the very back of your plantings. Be sure to give it plenty of room-15 square feet is not too much – for in time it will make a tremendous plant.
There are two little red peony scamps that are excellent for the forefront of any planting. They are hybrids and named ROSEDALE and ROSE MARIE.
Their Colors are bright and at first glance the flowers may be mistaken for roses. Whereas Cherry Hill may attain a height of 5 feet in rich earth, these two plants will stay at about 20 inches.
The exact dates at which peonies flower are so unpredictable from year to year that the effect of flower combinations seen in the imagination are scarcely ever realized. Varieties listed as late bloomers may be among the first to flower some years and the “early” ones often prove to be slowpokes.
If, like myself, you want your beauty treatments in big doses, plant several peonies of a single variety in each group. When I plant anything at all now, I try to plant quite a lot of it and in the most favorable media for that particular subject. This is one of the most prized lessons nature has been able to teach me in a half century of gardening.
The same principle applies generally to the idea of mixing peonies with the other border perennials. I have seen, though, one combination of real beauty. I refer to peonies and a wide selection of bearded iris. Once in a great while they will bloom at the same time. The fact of their being so utterly opposite in leaf style and flower only enhances the effect, the splashy peonies being offset by the colored iris candles, lighted and swinging upon their graceful candelabra.
Peonies In Arrangements
The remark is frequently made, “Peonies are too big for effective use in arrangements and they don’t last.” This just is not true, but I can readily see why many people think it so. If you grow the big varieties and disbud them in the regular manner, you will likely get exhibition blooms but not arrangement material. Such flowers will indeed be difficult to handle and if not thoroughly chilled they will not last long after cutting.
Do this instead and you will be more than delighted. Plant a bed of the glorious semidoubles which are more modest in flower size. There is no more decorative peony than the semidouble type.
Now that your bed of arrangement beauties are ready to work for you, they will require special but simple handling to produce blooms of arrangement size. About the first of May remove the terminal bud of each peony stalk. I also like to remove some of the others, leaving, let us say, three to five buds. In the case of Lady Duff, I would leave at least five buds or the flowers will be too large.
When color begins to show strongly, cut individual buds for low arrangements and the entire stalks for larger designs. Wrap them loosely in wax paper, foil or even newspapers and place them in the lower part of your refrigerator. The buds must be kept absolutely dry. They will be a pitiful mess when you remove them, maybe as much as ten days later. But – they will bounce right back into good condition when you place them in water. Never use water with chlorine in it.
The recuperative powers of the peony are positively amazing to the uninitiated.
A box of twelve blooms from Indiana was delivered to us in New York by mail. They were dry and wilted. The labels indicated that they were, or at least had been, buds of that great show variety, DOROTHY J. I am sure the lady for whom they were named would have been thoroughly ashamed of them. The first impulse was to throw them out, but instead, we gave them a good drink of water and a few puffs of cool conditioned air. The next morning they were in fine condition and one became grand champion of the show against sharp competition. If well chilled, peonies will satisfy anyone as to their lasting qualities and they don’t mind heat.
You just never get over the wonder of watching peony blooms revive after correct refrigeration. With a little experience, you can have them “in the pink” at a certain hour or day through temperature control and timing.
If you would like to have peonies in flower for 60 days, start the blooming season with a Japanese tree peony. I use Japanese as a qualifying word, because to my mind, the European varieties are inferior. A good Japanese variety will give you a few lordly blooms in early May. A lutea hybrid will follow soon after a few flowers , extremely long lasting and of a yellow or chartreuse shade (excellent corsage material). Then come the herbaceous hybrids in late May, and in all colors except blue and yellow. Last, there is the long parade of albiflora varieties which last nearly a month.
If you save a few bundles of the latest peony buds in your refrigerator, as I suggested before, or possibly better yet, place them in containers of water in a commercial cooler held at 35 degrees, you can have peony flowers in your home on July 15 or later. This should satisfy anybody.
by L Neal
