My peonies are breaking dormancy!

My peonies from Parkland Perennials in Canada are breaking dormancy. I put them in last fall, and they were quite large roots. It is a pleasant surprise to see them poking out of the ground after such a gruesome winter.

Mine are still covered in snow.

Can't wait to see them.

We got a major melt after our harshest winter in 140 years. My perennials are greening up, including some that are usually very iffy - I've never seen so much double feverfew in spring. Heuchera, geraniums and fragaria are showing up too.

Considering what Chicagoland winters can be like, getting to spring is a real achievement. Wonderful.

We still have a lot of snow in the northeast but in the clear patches the snowdrops and iris shoots are starting to appear. The hellebores look pretty beat. I hope to check peony roots soon to see if any need to be lifted higher because of all the soil and compost worked into the beds last fall. At least they'll get a chance to bloom in another year for sure that way.

Donna, you beat me in starting this thread! And I'm glad you did. I'm happy to hear, and a little proud, that your Canadian peonies are rising (first?). :)

Hello all! Happy belated new year and I hope everyone has been well. We've had a mild winter here. Frosts came early... and then left early. Plants are breaking earth a month earlier than last year.

Here is my most enthusiastic herbaceous (1) It is Morning Kiss. It's odd I can't find it listed on the peony database. It was a nice size in the pot when I had bought it. I'm happy to see it likes its new home.

(2) is Kao, I think. By process of elimination, because its tag disappeared, and assuming its name is true, it must be that tree. I can't wait to see it flower.

How wonderful to hear from you. I just posted on a Canadian thread about the great Canadian companies from which I purchase.

Absolutely my Canadians are first. I am particularly thrilled that the one you helped me find, Cornelia Shaylor, is the most enthusiastic about poking its little eyes up. It's so great when your first year plants affirm that "yes Donna, you planted me properly". Thrilling. But then, my Canadian peonies were historically the best.

But wow, you are WAYYYY ahead of me. We had our most atrocious winter in 100 years, with extreme low temperatures and wind chills, but we also had a dense snow cover, and perennials that normally would be dicey are coming back full force.

It's almost worth it. Keep us posted!

I saw daff pips yesterday and lamium chequers, that's it so far.

Donna, TY for starting this thread!

I have to share this with people, my DH doesnt care if my plants come up or not, but I DO! haha

Last July I went home to MI for a visit and my Aunt Charlotte told me to take some of my Great Aunt Adrians Peonies home with me. Shes been gone for over 20 years but some of the best childhood memories I had were out at their farm. I gladly took them and brought them home last summer. Planted with care. They soon started to flop over and turn Brown and crispy. I kept watering them hoping to bring them back. Iv been so afraid to call charlotte and tell her I killed them. I think I was more upset to lose a piece of my childhood than to tell her. I got over the loss over winter and got some Karl Rosenfelds to plant in their place. For Giggles I went out yesterday to check the spots where I had planted. I was overwhelmed to see the little shoots coming up!!!! I DIDNT KILL THEM!!!!! :D Let me say, Iv never been happier to see a plant come up, EVER!!! I dont know the type or anything, they have more sentimental value to me, more than anything. JUST SO HAPPY TO SEE THEM ALIVE!!! I am thrilled!!!

A story with a happy ending! Congratulations! Something like that, with so much nostalgic resonance, probably had you handling the peonies like they were precious, but they are tough. Was it Donna who found old dormant peony bulbs underneath other plants and when she cleared the area, the peonies started to grow? Gosh, now I don't recall.

Anyway, that is awesome. Thanks for sharing that. Please post pics of the flowers when they bloom.

Bravo badcat!

Don't worry. Even if your DH doesn't care we are here to cheer you on.

Poinget, the thing I found that looked like a peony tuber turned out to be hardy geraniums. Remember the pic? (I think you do!) Pic. 1

I put it into a pot and it turned into this! Pic. 2

I put it in the ground and it went nuts! This is one week later (pic. 3)

It turns out that ai Had a lot of geranium maculatum that had been buried quite deeply. I had one large blooming plant that I thought was gorgeous. But I could not figure out why I had one huge plant that had not spread. Well, it had - they were just all buried.

They all look like this. I think that they are lovely, and I have been spreading it to the shadier areas of my yard! (pic 4)

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This message was edited Feb 19, 2019 4:45 AM

Ack! Well, badcat, forget my comment about Donna's buried plant - lol

Donna, geraniums are my DH's favourite plant. He kept calling them the hardest working plants in our yard when we lived at the other house - nonstop flowers for months.

BTW, do deer eat crocuses? Something is chewing my crocus flowers. They don't get to open before they are ripped from their base and scattered. Some of my big bulbs are missing, too: squirrels.

Oops, I got off topic, but I'm going to add a pic of a growing Coral Sunset and pretend I never stopped talking about peonies. Smooth, huh?

How lucky you all are to see the first shoots... One more week before I get back to our garden... The house has been closed all winter. We've been snug in NYC, but horrified to hear about the massive snow and ice accumulations in the northeast. I've been zone pushing for years, and did a lot of late planting last fall, so expect some losses. It's encouraging that some of you are finding tender plants emerging now.

Pic 1, 2: I re-did a long border last fall, moving some old peonies and buying a couple more to fill in. There were also a few new ones the year before, that I'm hoping will put on a better show this year.
Pic 3: Red Grace- after a late frost damaged her buds, she bloomed anyway.
Pic 4, 5: Candy Heart, Duchesse De Nemours- oldies but goodies


I can't wait to see what's what!

Very smooth, but blame me for getting us off thread by misidentifying a gernamium as a peony in the first place! But your hubbie is right. I was given a gift of, literally 40 plus geranium Bevan's Variety (which is not only gorgeous but highly recommended by our Chicago Botanic Garden) and they can go in sun or shade, be watered or no, and they shade out weeds - so...

Pam, you may be pleasantly surprised. The ridiculous snow was a blanket. I call it the Minnesota effect. They, in zone 4, can grow plants we can't in zones 5a through 6b, because they have reliable snow cover. I have tons of feverfew tetra strain breaking dormancy. It looks like 100% of what was there before (which is great, because it had spread and it's gorgeous). It goes with everything, and I usually lose half of it. I dug up some of this from my house (the first picture is from 2007!) but it was always in a protected area. This year it was cold as heck, and exposed, yet boom!

You may find the same treasures under your ice and snow.

And I do know what you mean about the second year show!

Pam, do you post close-up pics of your garden when it's in bloom? I'd love to see them even if they don't include peonies. I like seeing how people put things together. You, too, Donna. It is because of you that I contemplate where and how best to plant a rose.

The feverfew's gorgeous, as well as the peonies. I got Duchess last year. I had no idea it held that many flowers on one branch - and yours was still standing!

Wow, what a compliment!

Ok, for roses, here is a teaser. Some roses can simply be grown as freestanding shrubs. Here is Zephirine Drouhin, a Bourbon rose usually grown as a climber. A rosarian in St. Loius told me to grow it despite it being labeled a zone 6 rose. He was right. This first picture lots of people have seen, perhaps because I've posted it before as a great illustration of a climber being grown as a shrub. This is in my old yard. I have TWO in my new one (if it ain't broke)....

The flowers can be quite full. The scent is outrageous. It tends to get some blackspot if it is unevenly watered, which I solved by putting a soaker hose around it and running it on a timer for 15 minutes a week if there was no rain. It also takes about three years to bloom, because it spends so much enery getting big - but it's worth the wait. And it blooms extravagantly in spring, a;ways has some flowers, and then springs into action again in fall until a hard frost.

So rambunctious a rose can beat off any competition in terms of showiness, so its companion is Geraniium Biokovo. (picture 3)

But I always like to think of effects, so here is Nepeta Souvenir Andre Chaudron as positioned, the photo, between Zeph to the right, Constance Spry in bud to the left, a young Greenspire linden, and my NEIGHBOR's arbor (never hesitate to consider expensive backdrops you can't afford!)(Picture 4)

Since this is a peony thread, let me show you what I do for the times when peonies are OUt of bloom: The peonies are finished, but the blue cynoglossum (reseeds with no help), the nicotiana alata (ditto), verbena bonariensis (yep!) all come back with NO assistance. The pink flower was mistakenly sent to me by Bluestone. I asked for 3 Salvia Rose Queen and was sent thre sapnaria Bouncing Bett. It took me a while to realize it. It has to be controlled, but if you deadhead it , it blooms all seasona. It must simply be hacked back from time to time.

My peony bed was lawn. I had a ten foot easement on one side of the property, and my community said that I could grow wnything I wanted as long as they didn't have to take care of it. As if!

2 $15 roses - but what an effect!!!

And early in the season, I put the previous year's tulips in my peony bed. It means you have to dig them up after they bloom in spring, but I would just dry them out in my garage, and then put them in my peony beds. They don't have to be at their best. These are all 2nd, 3rd, and in some cases 4th year tulips. They are mostly Triumph multiflowering tulips Happy Family and Weisse Berliner. They tend to break into singles after a couple of years, but they cost me nothing, and they are great filler.

In picture 2, here is my peony bed early in the year. The cheery little plants are the super cheap bulb chionodoxa sardensis - bright blue. You can see the tulip foliage, and you will also see a perennial toward the top, and lilies sprouting at the bottom. (picture 2)

That perennial, grown from seed, is salvia ssp. turkestanica. It ROCKS all season, and looks great with peonies in the pink white red range. Here with Cornelia Shaylor. (pic. 3)

At the other end of the bed, near where the chionodoxa is, throw in an "easy" lily. Regale album. It will bloom in July, when the peonies are finished. Pics 4 and 5

The lilies, verbena cynoglossum, chionodoxa, lilies, bouncing bett and salvia are planted once! They spread. The only work (oh yes, there are allium christophiis there too, which are planted once) is putting in the tulips in the fall and pulling them out after bloom.

Basic theories - lots of color and texture from easy plants. And put in lots, because it deters weeds.

Beautiful shots of your lovely gardens, Donna. I've been thinking about my habit of NOT taking the tulips out of my white peony garden, but then it wouldn't work to be watering annuals after that, which I haven't started there. Maybe I will take a page out of your gardening book and try to keep the planting going because what you've done sure looks good. I do have Chionodoxa and alliums, (I used the pink sparkler types like Christolphi (sp?) mainly) and immortality iris near the border in my white peony bed. I really love the look of your white peonies with the blue salvia. I've been putting salvias and alba campanulas in the pink bed which gets watered all summer, which i saw in C Colson Burrell's book about perennial combinations.

Next question for showing the peony bed off to the best advantage: how close can one plant evergreens? The formula for an apple tree is to keep conifers at least 15-20 feet away, I believe. But if I plant some small inkberries or japanese holly subshrubs, maybe they can be a little closer while the tall growing conifers go the full 15 feet or more away? Also, it is a fact that my soil is very acid, so I do spread dolomite in the peony beds twice a year, and keep the acid loving conifers well above them on the hill. Any suggestions about minimimum spacing of peonies from the luscious dark evergreens? I am always one to try to get the most use out of space possible.

In terms of planting peonies I always tried to get as many as possible into a space. I read that they should be four feet apart. I started with three, so I took a ruler and put the centers 36 inches apart in a triangle. You can get more into a given space that way. Then I purchased three more, and connected them to the first triangle, making a second one. I did the same thing with the next three. My peony bed was on a easement, and unlike my seeded lawn it was sod (they insisted). So I simply took a sharp shovel and made circles, and lifted the circles up. As I got more peonies I protected them with the granite rocks. Here is the formation. (pic 1)

In 2010 they appeared to be fairly far apart. (pic 2.) This is 8 days after pic. 1 After a bit they will almost touch - ALMOST!! Which is what you want.

The next pic is in 2009. The mistake I did make was growing white and pale pink peonies together. In our hot sun, they all bleach to white.

So I installed Lady Alexandra Duff. Well, actually, it was the third incorrect peony White Flower Farm sent me. But I fell in love. You will see allium christophii, which seeded itself delightfully all over my yard. And the itty bitty one is allium oreophyllum. HIGHLY recommended.

We crossposted. I arrived in 1998, and my only experience was growing plats in pots on my deck. But we moved with 30 pots, which I put on the front porch. We were a flotilla of four cars.

We sold it in 2011, but really it was mature long before that. If you figure out what a plant really wants (bend down and it will whisper it to you) and give that to it you get maximum healthy growth. You want your soil acidified, OK, Baby. You like lots of compost - yes, sir. I didn't know I was a rabid gardener. And for the first time, I had space. I walked into garden centers, always with a book. I never bought a plant without researching it. My biggest issue was the inappropriate plants that they installed, or installed badly. But you can work with even that.

The people the contractor chose to install my landscaping put a cornus alternifolia on the north side of my property. Poor thing - it leaned sideways, and I made them take it out (they replaced it with a knock 'em dead crabapple). The dogwood was two feet tall, and had one leaf left. I was going to toss it, but my husband, who was not a plant person, begged me to spare it. So I put it on the south side of the house, acidified it, composted it, and watered it. Ten minutes in spring, ten minutes in fall, and soaker hose watering

Nine years later, here it is was, in 2009. One of my favorite plants!

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Can we call you the plant whisperer, Donna? You've got the green thumb.

Praise from the Master is praise indeed!

OK, here we go. Pic 1: Very old property, very overgrown when I got there. Built on a hill, fieldstone walls creating four levels, sleepy creek at the bottom which becomes a meadow in the summer. My 8th season is about to commence.

2: There were many wonderful plants still there. Hostas, Daylilies, Siberian Iris among others, and some gorgeous old peonies here and there. One line goes halfway down the edge of the top lawn.

3: I'm continuing the line of peonies on the other side of the box shrub, as far as the big barrel at the end. This section is backed by Siberian Iris, and Hesperis Matronalis (Dame's Rocket) and Foxgloves pop up on their own. I've added Lupines, Salvias May Night and Caradonna, lots of TBI's. Under plantings are a dark-leaved Ajuga, ditto Heuchera. Later there are Daylilies, a stand of red Monarda rescued from the fringes where it had naturalized, Liatris, Asters, Japanese Anemones, and the self-perpetuating Nicotianas and Verbena Bonariensis. I'm still working on it, maybe this year if everything looks good I'll be able to bring in more small accents- geraniums (love'm), small bulbs, etc.

4: The long view when the Daylilies take over. There are clumps between the Peonies on the top ledge, as well as down the center island. From the 1930's until 1970, a gardener lived here who hybridized them.


5: In the bed below the new peonies are Saponaria, front and center- rampant but worth it- and Phlox (old and new), Stachys Byzantine and Hummelo, various Echinacea, Veronicas, Platycodons (Donna, I'm still working on your white and pink combo), Geraniums, Agastache, Penstemons, a few roses and lots of other stuff... A work in progress, lol.

Thanks for asking!

Wow Pam, how beautiful!

I agree about saponaria. Wild and crazy but yes, worth it!

I think that using an open space is the toughest assignment you can have, and you have done it beautifully.

I'm taking notes. I just looked up cynoglossum and that is one beautiful plant. I can't spend much money on my yard and garden this year, but I can buy a few things with a spot already reserved for them. The nepeta, salvia, and siberian irises are some things I could add easily enough. Sapnaria, hm. I'll have to think a little more on plant arrangement. (I wonder if cynoglossum grows well here??)

You've performed a miracle on the dogwood, Donna. Does your husband feel vindicated in his belief? :)

And Pam, that pic with the day lilies looks like it came from a public display garden. What a gorgeous scene.

I do always love to see beautiful garden pics in the morning. Thanks to Donna and Pam for posting.

To satisfy my curiosity, how far from the closest plant borders with peonies are the large conifers and trees? Pretty soon I am going to measure for an evergreen bed with a few levels to add some backstage contrast and screening, and I will perhaps reshape the peony bed also.

My peonies are quite a distance from the trees. There is a long expanse of lawn in between.

Yes, it's a bit daunting to design when you see everything all at once. Vignettes get lost, only the overview counts. But without the subtleties, it could look like an industrial park, lol, so I keep at it. That's actually the fun of it, to keep working on the big picture, and still tuck in the little surprises along the way. The palette keeps evolving as I go, always trying to punch it up without creating chaos.

And I do indulge myself- there's a section I think of as a White Garden, lots of silver foliage but rather a lot of lavender and blue flowers as well as white, and last year I started a Blue Garden down below.

Oh, yes, my husband felt VERY vindicated. He also helped choose the tree next to it. A $35 paperbark maple they couldn't sell, so we for it for $17.50. It was about five feet tall. They are supposed to be slow growers (four inches a year) but Donna did her love you to death thing. The two plants liked similar things. Maple like to be acidified and watered (our soil was VERY alkaline) so I treated them both to Ironite and pine bark mulch and a soaker hose.

Poinget, you can grow cynoglossum from seed. That's what I did. There is also a pink variety that is less vigourous. Once you have these plants you have them forever. And they have sticky seeds, so that you, and any creature in your yard, will spread them around. Nepeta id easily divided. In fact, it seeds, so Nepeta Dawn to Dusk ended up all over my yard. In my old yard, it went with everything.

People say bad things about saponaria bouncing bett, but you just have to control it. I am actually seeing the pink variety (yes, it comes in white!) on the trails, and they are trying to get rid of it, so I may help myself. But look at the effects you can get with it, if you remember that plants in your yard are not in isolation.

One of my grass beds, to which I added tough red lilies (Red alert, a Longiflorum asiatic, and Hiawatha - highly recommended) and Campanula trachelium Bernice (unlike pltatycodons, tough) produced a stunning effect when I photographed them from beyond my peony bed.

Any investment in cynoglossum is worthwhile. It never goes away. And it went with everything in my color palette. And can you think of any other cheap bright blues? I'm germinating some now.

Your trees are gorgeous! Soooo jealous... On LI I used to have a couple of maples, a dwarf weeper and a Coral Bark, lots of Viburnums, some Cornus, etc. And no work at all, the east coast soil is plenty acid. But here I've been so busy with the borders, and there are so many mature trees and shrubs, I haven't even tried up to now except for a couple of compact and semi- compact bushes.

Also, I've sworn off more lilies. I love them, but the red lily beetle is a real problem here. I'm willing to spray what I have to protect them, but no more. I really want low maintenance as much as possible.

Cheap blues, hmmmm... In my Blue Garden, I started with blue pots, lol, then started adding. Now I've got a bunch of Campanulas, blue pyramidalis and Blue Clips, and some Linum Saphyr Blue growing on the windowsill now. The Photinia never germinated, but I have tons of Nigella and Nemophila seeds to direct sow soon. There's an annual Dracocephalum, have the seeds but haven't tried it yet, and don't know yet if the perennial ones I bought last year will return. I've also ordered some of the Delphinium Belladonna series from Graceful Gardens, not sure how they'll do long term. If they like it, supposedly they self sow abundantly. And like you, I have Nepeta all over the place.

Then there are the Veronicas, but not necessarily cheap to buy, I've had no luck with seeds from trades, and they take a while to multiply.

I almost bought a gorgeous Veronica, but it's listed on the invasive species list. I live in the only place in Canada where this certain oak grows and people are keen to maintain the habitat. I can plant many things, but I may have to pass on that cynoglossum unfortunately. I don't want to be the reason it gets put on the naughty list. Nepeta seems ok, though, and it's certainly striking.

The popular blue here is ceonothus. It's not a cheap one. Also, the house happened to come with a bunch of historical irises - all blue. I asked my neighbour if she wanted irises because I had so many bulbs, and she asked me for the yellow ones. lol. I told her I just planted a yellow set and we'll see next year :)

I'll check out your other listed blues. Thanks!

I went to San Francisco and was blown away by the ceonanthus. It's too cold here to grow it. You are probably wise about the cynoglossum. It has sticky seeds that attach to animals and people and spreads itself that way. I put in one plant and ended up wit at least 30. Which I liked. But it might end up on a "naughty list" in a climate as pleasant as yours.

I put in mertensia last year, and I germinated some blue platycodon (which, really, is more purple). There really are very few true blue plants.

I agree! I bought ceanothus Marie Bleu last spring, which is supposed to be more cold hardy. I have yet to get to the house and see if it made it. We were supposed to go this weekend, but now there's a hitch. The plumber called, he can't get the water running. The whole east side of the house, where up the well is, is covered in ice and snow.

It's supposed to be warmer the next couple of days, and he'll keep trying. But if he can't get it working by Saturday, we can't go. :-(

Well, I lost a peony. It was decomposing. It looked like it had one good eye (red but not sprouting), but the rest of it was no good and my DH said to toss it. I keep wondering if it's my fault or if it came that way. I can't tell. The other peonies in the same bed are healthy and leafing out.

Also, I have this tree peony (1) that started sprouting, and then the shoots turned grey, then black. There are pink tips at the bottom that don't look affected, but I assume they are. From the same company, this tree peony (2) is not sprouting at all! (2) is Hanakisoi, which I absolutely wanted, and because there was no development in it, I bought another one at the nearby green grocer, for less than I paid for (2), because it was sprouting beautifully.

Oh, how disappointing!

I'm concerned that your sick peony may have a disease of the fungal variety? Are you keeping it well away from your healthy ones?

And was it mail order? I have gotten peonies replaced YEARS after I bought them. Is requesting a replacement a possibility?

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Hi all. I saw peony chat on ATP and figured I would wander back here to see what you all were up to. I have three new ones on order and added several last year. Need to stop moving them.

I am keeping a particular eye on my new ones for breaking dormancy. I moved a Burma Midnight that has appeared. I made a couple of rookie mistakes - happily they could be undone. I took a couple of peonies that bloomed in the "shade" areas of my former sun drenched garden to shadier places here. The first year they bloomed because of the stored energy. The second year - nope! (You can't fool us, Donna). So I moved them again.

My back yard has several mature trees - actually, my neighbors have them - I only have one. But there are "sunspots" and I got some of neighbors' trees pruned. I discussed it with them first. My nemesis are rotting Norway or silver maples and a walnut. Lots of seedlings, lots of dead branches, lots of nuts. I wrote the owners of the rotting tree a note and let them know that an arborist was coming to remove the sections over my yard, and asked whether they would like the rotting tree removed. It would cost less because I was bringing the team out. But nooooooo! It is eventually going to fall.

I am most curious about the OHG peonies I replanted, but they are late blooming cultivars and I have to be patient.

What do you have on order!!!!!!?????

Me too. I ordered several OHG peonies several years ago and have since found that I can get many of the same tubers (Thomas Edison, White Fawn) elsewhere cheaper. May be those are there to help pay for the expense of having all sorts of flowers that are indeed rare and expensive. All have died but only due to winter loss not any lack of vigor of the tubers or plants. Loved Hockley Maroon and have reordered White Fawn. Neither are large blooms but are just so perfect.

Donna, you've gotten peonies replaced years after you got them? So I guess I shouldn't worry about asking the company on what to do. And yes, the black one is in its own pot. Whew!

What a shame about that rotting tree.

Here is my funniest tree peony. It is Koukamon. It is lanky and the branches are still a bit twisted, although it has straightened out somewhat in the last week.

Absolutely I have gotten them replaced. I ordered three Festiva Maxima on a buy three for the price of one offer in September of 2001. Only one of the three was a FM. I told them this in 2005 and they replaced one Festiva Maxima - except they did it again. It was a Lady Alexandra Duff. I came to love it, and it's a great peony, but what does it tell you when your order four peonies and only one of them was what you wanted?

Three Adelman peonies from October of 2002 are being replaced this fall. I mentioned it in a thread and they contacted me. - yes, from 2002, and all three peonies. And at no cost to me.

Another company that shall remain nameless sent me two "red" peonies, and the first one bloomed pink. That was two years ago. I have the replacement. It came last fall.

If a company will replace a peony (three, in fact, after 12 years), go for it. Just write to them, tell them the facts, and they will make it good. All reputable companies do that.