Peony debunking and disbudding
Let’s debunk beliefs that the Queen of Spring is short lived and messy. I have five easy strategies to ensure a stunning, healthy and lasting peony crop.
Disbud the babies. If you roll off the tiny side buds visible above in early May, you’ll reduce the weight on the stem and ultimately get one stellar bloom instead of a three-headed monster.
2. Cut at least 25% of your stems at the marshmallow stage shown in the photo to stack, wrap, and store in the fridge, where they will chill comfortably for 3+ weeks, extending your seasonal display. The peonies will open when you cut off an inch of stem and drop them in a vase of water. After the field peonies are done blooming, you can enjoy the ones saved in the fridge.
Marshmallow stage is a bud right before it opens. When it looks full, give it a squeeze. It could feel like a fresh marshmallow and be ready to cut or you might need to circle back to squeeze again tomorrow or the next day.
3. When you see a rain coming, harvest the stems of open peonies to avoid heavily saturated blooms dropping to the ground and flattening your plants into a mildew mess. Fully open peonies like above hold rain like giant sponges. Unopened buds are unaffected by rain and sprinklers.
4. Cut freely from remaining stems as they open to keep your plants from getting fat. By reducing this volume, you won’t ever need to stake. It works.
I cut 12” stems, which is ideal for design work. The deeper you cut, the more you increase air flow, which reduces chance of mildew.
5. Dead head spent blooms in mid summer and apply copper fungicide to prevent mildew that often happens on hot days. Like the peonies in the left lower corner, the leaves are lovely in the landscape before and after blooming. They get more beautiful when turning copper in the fall.
I do these steps on 300+ mature peony plants, so I promise it’s easily done if you get out in the peony patch regularly. You want to stay on top of it, because the Queens of Spring don’t like to be ignored.