How to Plant, Grow, and Care for Peony Flowers
Peonies are flowering perennials that are best planted in autumn for those outrageously beautiful flowers that bloom from spring to summer. See how to plant, grow, and care for peonies.
About Peonies
Peonies are perennials that come back every year to take your breath away with the fattest, most scrumptious flowers and lush green foliage.
In the 1930s and ’40s, plant catalogs listed only three peony choices: white, crimson, and rose pink. Today, thousands of varieties are available.
Peonies have lovely foliage and are easy to grow, magnificent as cut flowers, and hardy anywhere you need an overcoat (they require a cold period for bud formation—a frustration to some southern gardeners).
Once settled in the garden, they can be content for generations. Some have been known to thrive for a century!
When Is Peony Season? When Do Peonies Bloom?
Peonies bloom from late spring through early summer, depending on your location and the variety of peonies you’re growing.
Many nurseries offer early, midseason, and late blooming varieties, allowing you to stretch out the peony season over many weeks and enjoy those lovely blooms for as long as possible!
Peonies are hardy to Zone 3 and grow well as far south as Zones 7 and 8. In most of the U.S., the rules for success are simple: provide full sun and well-drained soil. Peonies even relish cold winters because they need chilling for bud formation.
Types of Peony Flowers
There are six peony flower types to choose from: anemone, single, Japanese, semi-double, double, and bomb. Fragrances vary as well—some plants such as ‘Festiva Maxima’ and ‘Duchesse de Nemours’ have intoxicating rose-like scents, while others are lemony or have no scent at all.
Where to Plant Peonies
Peonies make fine sentinels lining walkways or a lovely low hedge. After its stunning bloom, the peony’s bushy clump of handsome glossy green leaves lasts all summer and then turns purplish-red or gold in the fall, as stately and dignified as any flowering shrub.
In mixed borders, peonies bloom with columbines, baptisias, and veronicas, and combine well with irises and roses. Plant white peonies with yellow irises and a froth of forget-me-nots; set off pink peonies with blue Nepeta or violets.
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Peonies are not too fussy, but choose your location wisely, as they resent disturbance and do not transplant well.
Peonies like full sun, and though they can manage with half a day, they bloom best in a sunny spot that gets 6 to 8 hours of sunlight each day. In southern states, provide some shade.
Provide shelter from strong winds, as peonies’ large blooms can make them top-heavy. (Use stakes to hold them up, if necessary.) Don’t plant too close to trees or shrubs, as peonies don’t like to compete for food, light, and moisture.
Grow peonies in deep, fertile, humus-rich, moist soil that drains well. Soil pH should be neutral.
When to Plant Peonies
Peony plants require little maintenance as long as they are planted properly and establish themselves. Note, however, that they do not respond well to transplanting, so you should plan your planting site accordingly.
- Plant peonies in the fall: in late September and October in most of the U.S., and even later in the fall in Zones 7 and 8. (Find your planting zone here.)
- If you must move a mature plant, fall is the time to do it—specifically, when the plant has gone dormant.
- Peonies should be settled into place about six weeks before the ground freezes.
- Although it’s certainly possible to plant peonies in the spring, spring-planted peonies don’t do as well. Experts agree: they generally lag about a year behind those planted in the fall.
How to Plant Peonies
- Peonies are usually sold as bare-root tubers with 3 to 5 eyes (buds), divisions of a 3- or 4-year-old plant.
- Space peonies 3 to 4 feet apart to allow for good air circulation between the plants. Stagnant, humid air can be a recipe for disease to develop.
- Dig a generous-sized hole, about 2 feet deep and 2 feet across in well-drained soil in a sunny spot. The soil will benefit from the addition of organic material in the planting hole. If the soil is heavy or very sandy, enrich it with extra compost. Incorporate about one cup of bonemeal into the soil. Learn more about soil amendments and preparing soil for planting.
- Set the root so the eyes face upward on top of a mound of soil in the hole, placing the roots just 2 inches below the soil surface. Don’t plant too deep! (In southern states, choose early-blooming varieties, plant them about 1 inch deep, and provide some shade.)
- Then, backfill the hole, taking care that the soil doesn’t settle and bury the root deeper than 2 inches. Tamp the soil gently.
- When planting a container-grown peony, cover it no deeper than it grew in the pot.
- Water thoroughly at the time of planting.
Keeping Peony Flowers in a Vase
Peonies make wonderful cut flowers, lasting more than a week in a vase. For best results, cut long stems in the morning when the buds are still fairly tight.
You can wrap freshly cut peony stems in a damp paper towel and put them in a plastic bag in the refrigerator until you’re ready to use them. When removing the peonies from the refrigerator, give the stems a fresh cut and place them in lukewarm water to wake them up.
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Peonies are generally very hardy. Plus, peonies are also one of many deer-resistant plants you can grow in your garden.
However, they are susceptible to:
- Verticillium wilt
- Ringspot virus
- Tip blight
- Stem rot
- Botrytis blight
- Leaf blotch
- Japanese beetles
- Nematodes
- Aphids
Why Are There Ants on My Peonies?
Many gardeners wonder why so many ants crawl on the peony buds. Don’t worry! They are just eating the peony’s nectar in exchange for attacking bud-eating pests. They are attracted to the sugary droplets on the outside of flower buds or to the honeydew produced by scale insects and aphids. Never spray the ants; they’re helping you by keeping your peonies safe!
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I have a tree peony that has been in the same spot for at least 30 years, and I'm wondering if it's possible to dig up a portion of the plant and transplant it. Does this work for a tree peony? It's different than the regular peonies.
Hi Diana,
Yes, you can divide your tree peony and fall (when it is dormant) is the best time to do it. But you only want to move forward with a tree peony division if it has more than 1 or 2 trunks or stems because there will not be much to divide if that is the case.
You will have to dig up the whole plant to divide it properly because just taking a section from where it is currently planted could end up injuring the roots of the entire plant. To divide it properly you need to see the whole root system.
To divide, dig around the plant’s drip line and gently loosen to avoid damaging the roots. Once removed from the ground, wash off the soil and cover the roots with a slightly damp burlap cloth for a couple hours to allow the roots to rest. Since most tree peonies are grafted, you will want to remove the original herbaceous graft root, which is dark and bulbous. Just be careful not to damage the lighter and longer roots of your peony.
Divide the roots carefully and make sure each division has a stem and a root to make it viable when replanted. You can try pulling them apart, but you may need to make a few cuts with a sharp knife or pruners. Remember to remove any dead or rotted roots.
You then want to plant your divisions as soon as possible.
Hope this helps. Good luck!
I have three peonese in a landscape segment that needs rework due to weed and grass invasion. I want to save the peonese but to work I will need to cut them back. I read above that they should be cut back to ground in the fall. If I were to cut them back sooner, say after they lost their blooms, would that harm them?
You can, but... it won't help the plant and will weaken them, so if they are weak, I'd wait. That said, if it's a smaller plant, try to dig out and move but leave about half of leaves if possible. That way it can still get e ergy while trying to recover from the move.
I've had success everything doing it that way. I feel for you though. The only place my grass is surviving this drout is in my flower beds.
Hi, This is great. Could you also explain when and how to cut blossoms to generally support the plant--and also possibly support more blooming? Thank you
Aren't you ignoring differences between herbaceous, tree and Itoh peonies?
Regular peonies and tree peonies (or crosses) have similar care requirements. They both originate from Asia, they both have short but gorgeous blooming season, and they both can live up to a century. Regular herbaceous peonies typically stand about 2 to 3 feet tall; tree peonies reach between 4 and 5 feet when fully mature. The main difference is that tree peonies should NOT be cut or pruned unless there is a dead branch.
Are Grass grub and Porina slugs a problem to Peonie bulb we have just planted them and wondering what to use
I have found that diatamaceous earth is wonderful for the slugs and other bugs. Mix with the soil and it kills them. First year in a long time that my azaleas are doing fantastic and no longer have the Azalea moth eating them up.!
Peonies are grown from tubers. Slugs generally stay away from peonies, which are often listed among the plants that slugs don’t like!
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