{"id":2717,"date":"2019-04-28T13:03:59","date_gmt":"2019-04-28T21:03:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/?p=2717"},"modified":"2019-04-28T13:03:59","modified_gmt":"2019-04-28T21:03:59","slug":"peony-uprising","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/peony-uprising\/","title":{"rendered":"Peony Uprising"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"A<\/a>
A peony in waiting<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There may be some people who don\u2019t love peonies.\u00a0 Fortunately I don\u2019t know them.\u00a0 Ever since the first red tips of peony sprouts popped up a few weeks ago, I have been waiting impatiently for the day when they burst into big flamboyant blooms.\u00a0 Then I will say, \u201cDamn the ants; full speed ahead,\u201d and rush to pick a bunch for the house.<\/p>\n

Drawn to the sticky nectar exuded by the buds, those ants are as much a part of the peony experience as color and fragrance.\u00a0 If you bring peony buds indoors, be sure to evict the ants before you cross the threshold.\u00a0 My mother, who loved peonies but was repelled by ants, was scrupulous about that step.<\/p>\n

English writer and gardener extraordinaire Vita Sackville-West, made every plant sound like a poem, but she was uncommonly eloquent about peonies.\u00a0 Here is what she wrote:<\/p>\n

\u201cIt always seemed to me that the herbaceous peony is the very epitome of June.\u00a0 Larger than any rose, it has something of the cabbage rose\u2019s voluminous quality, and when it finally drops from the vase, it sheds its petticoats with a bump on the table, all in an intact heap, much as a rose will suddenly fall, making us look up from our book or conversation, to notice for one moment the death of what had still appeared to be a living beauty.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

In my garden this year the peonies will most likely open during the first half of May, rather than June, which only means less waiting time.\u00a0 What Vita calls \u201cherbaceous peonies\u201d are Paeonia lactiflora, or common garden peonies.\u00a0 You can buy them everywhere, making peonies the perfect combination of miraculous and ubiquitous.\u00a0 Right now, the big box stores feature boxed or containerized peony plants, generally labeled in prosaic fashion\u2014\u201cPeony-Pink\u201d or \u201cPeony Red\u201d.\u00a0 In the better catalogs you can also find named varieties like the alluring \u2018Festiva Maxima\u2019, a nineteenth century peony distinguished by big full heads of white petals, each with a single spot of red at the heart.\u00a0 ‘Festiva’ always does a star turn on the garden stage.<\/p>\n

The most common peony flower colors are white, pink or red, but breeders have expanded the color range to include coral, yellow and cream, not to mention maroon shades so dark that they look almost purple or black.<\/p>\n

Some catalogs will send you plants now, others ship peony roots in the fall.\u00a0 To avoid disappointment, it pays to check this when you order.<\/p>\n

When most people think of peonies, they imagine generic, fluffy-headed blooms, but the flowers unfurl into at least five different configurations.\u00a0 Single peonies feature one row of petals and look a little like giant anemones or super-sized poppies.\u00a0 Japanese varieties generally sport two rows of petals.\u00a0 Semi double, double and \u201cbombe\u201d-types feature successively increasing numbers of petals.\u00a0 The bombe peonies are crammed with them, generally massed into a large ball shape.<\/p>\n

Peony history forms a very long arc.\u00a0 The plants are native to central Asia and have been cultivated by the Chinese since at least the seventh century.\u00a0 Roots and other parts have been also used medicinally at various times and places.\u00a0\u00a0 Paeonia lactiflora was introduced to England in the 1780\u2019s and reintroduced in 1807.\u00a0 The plants caught on and by the Edwardian era, which began after Queen Victoria\u2019s death in 1901, they had become garden favorites.\u00a0 On top of all their other virtues, peonies have proven to be extremely durable.\u00a0 Deer turn away from them, and, if left undisturbed, they are fully capable of returning annually for decades.<\/p>\n

In addition to their other virtues, peonies are relatively easy to grow.\u00a0 If you buy a potted specimen now, turn the peony out of the pot and plant so that the soil at the top of the root ball is level with the soil surrounding the planting hole.\u00a0 Water thoroughly and continue to water regularly if the weather is dry.\u00a0 The plants thrive in either full sun or very light shade.<\/p>\n

If you order peony roots and plant in the fall, dig a shallow hole and position the root so that the \u201ceyes\u201d, from which new shoots will grow, are covered by only about two inches of soil.\u00a0 Planting too deep will delay or prevent the peony from growing.\u00a0 If winters are cold and snow is infrequent, mulch peonies with a layer of straw or other organic material.<\/p>\n

Now, as the peonies are leaping up, is a good time to look at the \u201choles\u201d in your planting scheme and think about filling them with this timeless flowering plant.\u00a0 For an excellent selection, go to Song Sparrow Farm and Nursery, Song Sparrow Farm; 13101 East Rye Road, Avalon, WI 53505; (608)-883-2356; www.songsparrow.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There may be some people who don\u2019t love peonies.\u00a0 Fortunately I don\u2019t know them.\u00a0 Ever since the first red tips of peony sprouts popped up a few weeks ago, I have been waiting impatiently for the day when they burst into big flamboyant blooms.\u00a0 Then I will say, \u201cDamn the ants; full speed ahead,\u201d and … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,2,3,5],"tags":[2092,1182,2091,2090,1416,302,673],"class_list":["post-2717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall","category-general-interest","category-spring","category-summer","category-winter","tag-festiva-maxima","tag-flowering-perennials","tag-herbaceous-peonies","tag-paeonia","tag-paeonia-lactiflora","tag-peonies","tag-spring-flowers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2717"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2717\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2719,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2717\/revisions\/2719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}