Did you know investing in your peonies this Fall helps ensure better peonies next year and in years to come?
Not only is Fall the best time to plant bare-root peonies, t’s also a great time to divide and/or move them too.
So - as your garden (or small farm) moves into the fall - here are some jobs to consider.
Decide which peonies to move
First, ask yourself whether your peony plant is:
Getting too much shade
Showing a sustained tendency for disease in its current location
Getting crowded out by neighbor plants and/or crowding out neighboring plants
No longer working with the aesthetic design in a given bed
If you answer “yes” to any of these, then moving your peony may make sense.
Decide which peonies to divide
Dividing a peony makes good sense in 2 scenarios:
1) You want new plants!
If you really love a particular variety, then consider digging and dividing your existing plant.
Yes, division can mean reduced flowering for a 1-2 years. But once all of your divisions are established, you’ll be so glad you made the effort!
To learn how to divide a peony, referemce our “How To” video on our Peony Maintenance page.
2) You’re moving the peony anyway.
We rarely move a peony without taking at least 1 root division. Division helps to stimulate healthy new root growth thereby increasing the overall health of the subsequent plants.
The only time we don’t divide a root is when the plant we’re moving is either very small or has severe disease. In the latter case, just trim off any rotting or diseased root pieces and replant as is. We often find that the combination of removing the problematic parts of the root + a new planting location revives peonies that were otherwise not thriving.
prep your soil for Peony planting
Once you know how many peonies you’ll be moving, prepare a planting space for them. We’ve tried various soil amendment approaches and have found the following works best for us
1) Pick a site that’s well drained year round.
If you are planting in a site where drainage might be problematic at certain times of year, then build a raised bed and plant into that.
2) Amend with compost.
Even when we’re starting with good soil, we always apply at least 2 inches of compost to the soil surface.
3) Have mulch at the ready
I know - there are lots of warnings about using mulch with peonies. In our context, however, we have found mulch is a key success factor for our plants.
After we plant we apply 2” of mulch over top of the planting and on the surrounding area. This enables 2 things
1) It protects the roots from heaving the first winter they are in the ground. We recommend all gardeners in Zones 2-5 do this same thing. If you do mulch, remember to go back in the spring and pull the mulch off the crown of the plant. This help ensures you don’t get fungal or rot issues on the crown.
Gardeners in Zones 6-8 do not need to mulch the top of the plant. In those Zones, simply mulch over the roots of the peony but not over the crown.
2) It helps prevent weeds from sprouting near your new plant
Remove Weeds that have crept in during the growing season
Maragaret Roach - in her wonderful podcast “A Way To Garden” - noted that weeds in 2022 have been - exact quote - “Epic.”
Amen, Margaret. Amen.
If you’ve had the same experience this year, try to get into your problem areas now and remove all the weeds you can.
Particularly focus on those perennial weeds. (Canadian thistle - how we loathe thee!). Perennial weeds will continue to establish themselves over the winter, leaving you an even bigger problem in the spring.
Our favorite hand weeding tool the Japanese Weeding Knife. We literally have three of them and use them constantly. We use this version.
Remove foliage
To help prevent peony diseases, you’ll need to remove all peony foliage.
For itohs and herbaceous peonies, you can cut back to the stems to about 2-6 inches above the soil surface.
For tree peonies, simply remove the leaves themselves.
Bag all foliage and either burn it or put in the trash. Do not compost unless you practice HOT composting. Hot composting will destroy the pathogens. Cold composting diseased foliage will cause the pathogens to multiply.
