Blooming from late spring through early summer, peony shrubs bear breathtaking blooms that decorate our gardens just as Bismarck warms up enough to enjoy them again! While there are many different types of peonies, they’re known best for their characteristic ruffled petals, relatively large flower heads, and various shades of pink. They’re perfect shrubs for lining pathways, creating mixed borders, or accenting flower beds, and they make lovely cut flowers for your early summer vase. Best of all? These pretty perennials are super easy to care for!
Planting Peonies
Peonies can be planted in either the spring or the fall, however they tend to find better success with fall-planting. So if you don’t already have a plant to care for, bookmark this page for later this year, when you plant one!
Choose a site that will provide your shrub with full sun to part shade, but that is also sheltered from harsh winds that would disturb their large flowers. Use fertile, well-draining soil, with a neutral pH. Most importantly, ensure that you’re choosing an appropriate place the first time around — peonies may not be finicky about their home, but they don’t like to be moved once they’ve dug their roots.
Space plants about three or four feet apart, and avoid planting them too close to other shrubs and trees that will shade their sunlight or compete for moisture and nutrients.
Peony Plant Care
Luckily, once they’re settled, peonies require very little interference to thrive. You may wonder why your shrubs aren’t growing or blooming right away, but rest assured that this is normal—peonies simply take some time to mature and fully establish themselves. Here are some things you can do to help them along:
Plant them in full sun. If your plants aren’t in a place that will enable them to receive ample sunlight, you may need to carefully transplant them. Although they don’t really enjoy transplanting, they absolutely need sunlight in order to bloom. You can also try cutting back or removing trees or other objects that are shading your plant.
Avoid over-watering your plants. These shrubs require well-draining soil and will suffer in wet conditions, so be very careful not to over-love them with the watering can. Of course, they need water when they’re first planted and during stretches of hot, dry weather, but otherwise, a good drink every few weeks during the spring and summer is sufficient.
Avoid excessive fertilizer and mulch. This might come as a surprise, but these perennials actually do quite fine without the “extras”. As long as you work some fertilizer into the soil before you plant it, you shouldn’t need to fertilize again. If your soil is particularly poor, you can apply an all-purpose fertilizer in late spring/early summer. Mulch is usually unnecessary for these Zone 3-hardy perennials, other than to protect the roots from a particularly nasty winter. In that case, you can loosely cover their roots with shredded bark or pine needles for winter protection, but remove in the spring.
Support your plants, especially when they’re young. It’s not uncommon for the stems of this shrub to weaken under the pressure of supporting its massive blooms, especially when they’re wet. For the first few years, until the plant is structurally sound, it’s important to reinforce the shrub with plant supports or cages.
Deadhead fading blossoms. Cutting away flowers after they finish blooming will keep your shrub healthy and encourage continuous blooming — and who doesn’t want a longer peony season?! In the fall, you should also cut back foliage to prepare it for spring growth and keep it safe from disease.
Growing Peonies in Pots
It goes without saying that you’ll need a fairly large pot, but yes, these perennial shrubs can decorate your patios or pergolas in containers. Make sure the container is wide and deep enough for the shrub to mature, and has sufficient drainage. They’ll also require more frequent watering than your garden peonies, but you should still allow the soil to dry completely in between waterings. You may need to overwinter potted peonies indoors—while their roots can handle the frost, the continuous thawing and freezing that happens in planters is damaging.
The big, bright blooms of this perennial plant scream “diva”, but peonies are surprisingly low maintenance. If you’re interested in adding one of these gorgeous flowering shrubs to your garden, check out our selection here at Plant Perfect. We’ve got a range of colors and sizes available!