Peonies do best when they do not have to compete with trees for nutrients so do not plant near the base of the trees because it can effect their blooms. When planting from new tubers with no foliage, they can take 3-5 years to bloom.  To allow regrowth in spring, they need the freezing temperatures of winter to die back to the ground.  Clear dead foliage to decrease likelihood of disease.
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Peonies are perennial flowers which, with a little patience, can be the most beautiful blooms in your garden.  They can bloom for 6-8 weeks in the spring and summer.  Ants are attracted to the sweet nectar of the bloom but do no damage to the plants and ants are great pollinators so I leave them alone.Notice (pictured below) how the color of the foliage changes completely within a few weeks.  When they first burst onto the scene in February or early March, they are dark purple.  As the foliage grows, it turns to a burgundy.  The burgundy fades into lovely dark green, shiny leaves.
Planting Instructions:
  • Plant tubers 12-18" deep and 3-4' apart as they will multiply over time.
  • Remember to ammend the soil with organic material (either form hyour own compost or store-bought bagged compost.  We offer organic fertilizers that are perfect for peonies.
  • Planting in well-drained soil will decrease the liklihood of root rot.      
  • Best grown in a soil with a pH level of 6.0-7.0.
When I began gardening, under the tutalage of my grandmother, I called her in a panic after pacing back and forth for several weeks and waiting for the transplanted peonies she had given me (which her "granddaddy" planted, I'm assuming in the 1930s or 40s, when she was a girl in Hendersonville).  I told her that my peonies were not coming back, I'd killed them. She told me to calm down and walk outside and brush the leaves and dirt aside and look for a small, purple nub.  I took the cordless phone outside and did exactly what she told me and there it was, staring back at me....I was standing in my yard with dirt under my fingernail, mouth agape, phone on my shoulder. When I think about that moment, in my early 20s and feeling like a child, I was hooked. Sunk. Goosed. Now that she's gone, I hear her voice telling me, "You'd better pay attention to me now...one day I won't be here to answer your questions."