Today with fabulous helper Richard I cleared up the weeds and debris in the patio area, which brings me to the last week of this 3-wk visit to our eventual retirement home. I have done every garden-prep task I had set myself for this trip but one last thing is bugging me-- shouldn't I cut the peony down? (Total newbie here.)
What should I be seeing on it that tells me it's time to cut it and set the cage it should have had this year, to catch it next year?
Will I get viable cuttings to take home to spawn another few to plant? Is 3 weeks ling enough to start em in the ground (spring???), or should I plan for a babysitter
And.... what timeframe might I shoot for, to actually be here to enjoy it in bloom? I missed it this first year of having this house.
Thanks for any help.
~Susan
Cut off peonies?
Susan, I'm sorry I didn't see this until just now. You're probably gone.
Here is a site that seems to answer most of your questions!
http://www.almanac.com/plant/peonies
I did cut them and am now learning abt powdery mildew.... sure that's what I saw. Does that recur if I move the plant to a less chronically-damp (sunnier) spot?
Not as much. It helps if there's good air circulation around them.
Yay! Planning to divide with moving them. Thanks!
You're quite welcome!
Joyce, I came back from Xenia sick and never did get the peony cage up before I left.
My plan is to READ gardening when in PA (where I am now) and DO gardening when I'm in Ohio. As I get back on my feet, the link u gave above will def be prep-reading.
We are due back in Ohio for a quick trip the first wk of Feb. About all we can do for the garden then is:
1. Get and place a cage in case I don't get back for the spring trip in time to catch the peony. It was already slated for a new spot in the sun nearby, and whenever I can I will move it.
2. The other GREAT thing to do there in February will be to take really-accurate measurements of the whole property, which will eventually include at least five distinct areas, each with a theme and color scheme. The numbers I got in the recent trip are off in enough places to make a landscaping software frizz out, because -- at the time I had a helper available-- I lacked the 100' tape and the graph paper I picked up later. I do have a lot of pix of 5 fairly blank canvases, and some idea where the sun is for most seasons of the year.
3. Even in Feb. I guess I can ask the utilities people where not to dig, so I can rock and roll the design thoughts the rest of the winter and start some seeds for spring plantings.
This message was edited Oct 21, 2015 5:52 PM
Sounds like you've got a good plan! Hang in there...another Spring is on the way!!
Hang in there...Spring is on the way (by April, anyway)!
Thanks guys. I'm just finishing up the Fall visit and I'm pretty pumped-- I have lucked into a Master Gardener I can work with at the local garden center. She guided me to and thru a bulb garden installation to 'corner' one of my planned rooms. Since that 'room' is the children's garden, it's especially that my helpers were 3 great kids working for Pocket money who I call the Neighborhood Kid Crew. Their next Saturday project is helping me downsize and rebuild an old wishing well/planter, and place about 6 garden chatchkes.
Bulbs-- a skinny kidney shape with mixed daffodils, and with grape hyacinth at the foot and shoulder. (The white wishing well goes right at the hyacinths' base.) The bulbs went into a cleft I wrote about elsewhere, where I had wanted spiraea. Nope-- when the drains clogged with roots in August, we learned WHY that tree or shrub had been ripped out! (I have a sunnier spot in mind for the spiraea.)
The bricks will move outward as I lasagna-garden out from the bulbs, for low perennials.
What annuals on top of the bulbs?
This message was edited Oct 21, 2015 6:12 PM
That will be beautiful!
Maybe sun impatiens?
Didn't know about those-- thanks!
Didn't know about those-- thanks!