Peony
Paeonia lactiflora
Lavish late-spring bloom — long-lived, bee-thronged, the pride of the border.
- Type
- Flower · Perennial
- Botanical family
- Mixed / other
- Foliage color
- Green
- Flower color
- Pink
- Sunlight
- Full sun to part shade
- Watering
- Moderate
- Soil
- Deep, rich, well-drained
- Feeding
- Bone meal in spring, with the mulch kept pulled back from the crown.
- USDA zones
- 3a–8b
- Frost tolerant
- Yes
- Flowering
- May
- Pruning
- Take herbaceous types down to the ground in autumn.
- Plant out
- at the last spring frost
- First harvest
- 30 days after the last spring frost
- Harvest ends
- 100 days before the first fall frost
- Mar–Mar Bud Break
- Mar–May Spring Growth
- May–Jul Flowering
- Jul–Oct Growing
- Oct–Dec Leaf Fall
- Jan–Mar Leaf Fall
- Plant spacing
- 2 ft 11 in
- In-row spacing
- 2 ft 11 in
- Between rows
- 3 ft 3 in
- Square-foot density
- Not suited to SFG
- Root system
- A fleshy crown with thick perennial roots
- Working depth
- 12 in–3 ft
- Can reach
- 5 ft down where the soil allows
- Spread
- 3–4.5 ft across, about 1–1.5× the width of the plant
- Shallowest pot
- 18 in of soil
The crown is the plant’s bank account and it is slow to rebuild, which is why a new planting is left unpicked for a season or two. Plant it at the depth it asks for and no deeper; these rot from being buried far more often than they suffer from being shallow.
The one rule that matters: the eyes on the crown go no more than 3 to 5 cm below the surface, and shallower on heavy soil. A peony that has grown leaves for years and never flowered is almost always a peony planted too deep, and lifting it in autumn to reset the depth is the whole cure.
The habit is Peony’s own; the figures are what that habit usually comes to at this size, not a measurement of this species. Roots follow the soil either way: a compacted pan, a high water table or heavy clay stops them well short of any of it, and deep open ground lets them go further.
- When
- Cut in cool morning during the brief late-spring–early-summer window; the whole season is 2–3 weeks per variety, so timing is everything.
- What to look for
- The marshmallow test: cut when the bud is colored and yields to a gentle squeeze like a soft marshmallow — still round and closed but no longer hard. Hard buds won't open; open flowers last only days.
- How to harvest
- Cut stems 18–24 in with sharp pruners but never take more than a third to half the stems from one plant, and leave at least two sets of leaves on each cut stem — the foliage feeds next year's bloom. Ants on buds are harmless; shake or rinse them off.
- How often
- One glorious annual harvest per plant; deadhead spent garden blooms to the first leaf to keep energy in the root. Plants get more generous every year for decades.
- Storing the crop
- Marshmallow-stage stems hold 2–4 weeks dry-wrapped in paper in the refrigerator — recut and vase them for bloom on demand. In the vase, 5–9 days, opening spectacularly. Change water every other day.
Roses, Iris, Geraniums, Alliums
Good neighbors
Slow to settle but immensely long-lived — a peony can outlast the gardener who planted it.
Green-leaved flowers, like this one.
The Cottage Garden Companion — the gardener's herbarium at cottagegardencompanion.com