Peony

Mustang, OK

I dug up, separated and potted some peony tubers last fall. They are peeking up through the soil now. I planted the POTS in a raised bed last fall and now am ready to remove them and give them to friends and family. (I ended up with 25 pots!). My question is this. When you divide peonies, the perfect time to do it is autumn. Since these were divided but not put in the ground, is it ok to plant them now? Will they bloom this year? It's still cool here (central Oklahoma, zone 7). Thanks for any help you can give me! ;-)

Scott County, KY(Zone 5b)

If you potted them up in soil when you divided them, then they should be just fine to plant in gardens now - no different than if you purchased a potted Peony from a garden center.

If there are emergent stems, then gardeners should be prepared to occasionally cover them in case of late frosts/freezes. Whether they will flower will be dependent on how large or how small the divisions were. Peonies with three to five "eyes" are often sold as flowering size, but with so many selections there will be variation. The quality of life your divisions have had since last year will also make a difference too.

I'd suspect that if these new potted up Peony plants are healthy, and if they are planted properly (depth of planting is usually the most important thing, to ensure flowering) in normal gardening soil environments and are treated nicely in this coming year, they will either flower this year or next year at the latest.

You would have had to divide them into pretty small pieces for it to take longer than that to flower.

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