Peonies

[BarbCA]

It seems to take them a while to get started blooming. Joy planted one near the front patio three years ago. It hasn't bloomed yet but she says it usually takes seven years for them to get established.
One of the neighbors had a huge one, almost as tall as me. It had gorgeous peachy/pink blossoms. She went away to a nursing home and someone removed the plant. She couldn't remember how long ago she planted it but it was the largest I have ever seen.

We are zone 8 here.

[Mayebarnes]

wish I had a green thumb.....have tried in the past to grow peonies.. they died.. and everything I plant with the exception of marigolds and geraniums die..and that riotous plant ,the vinca vine ,no one can kill that stuff. .......grandmother had a huge peony bush.. and Darla is right ,, they need the ants to help them open the flower... so ants do a purpose on this earth..... now if only we know what the fly was for?.

[Paula A]

JoGee, I do need glasses fo reading; I just meant I don'tsee any ants around here, my house...we allsay that REd Bluff was planned on a gravel bed above an ant colony! This town is full of them; I just have finally forced them elsewhere with my pest control guy!

[JoGee]

They probably burrow underground. I didn't particularly notice any ants in our neighbor's garden. But my grandparents lived on the next lot, and I found nests of red and black ants on the property line. They burrowed.

[Schmitty]

Not sure what happened to my peonies....we transplanted them couple years ago...and they have not had a bloom since that time.... sad...always loved the big blossoms.

[determined]

Schmitty, the "experts" deny it but the old timers always said it takes them several years to establish themselves after being transplanted.

There must be different kinds of peonies. As some look almost like a tree and can be shaped. The kind I have (and everyone I know has had) dies off and then comes back up every year like a hosta or iris. When they first start popping their little heads out of the ground the stems and leaves are red.

[karlinann]

I love peonies too. The fragrance is superb and the flowers are heavenly. Did you know that you can dry the flowers if you cut them just as they are opening and hang them upside down. Lovely.