The weather in California, along with the rest of the nation, has been erratic and we have had a delayed spring with much greater rainfall than we could have expected on average.  This extended cool and rainy spell has stretched out the peony blooming season in a wonderful way.

Peonies Caught my Attention Today!

Coral Supreme and Coral Charm bloomed in April as they are always the earliest, but I picked a surprise straggler today and added it to the line up of peonies that I was photographing.  The other varieties that have been blooming are many pinks including Mons. Jules Elie, Mrs. F.D. Roosevelt, Princess Margaret, and Kansas.  Reds and whites and bi-color peonies are still blooming away and some are still in bud.  Only if it should get very hot will this have a dampening effect on the blooming season as buds will not open if very hot weather comes along too early.

Gay Paree is a peony that I planted several years ago, and I’ve found it in several places – at least one where it had not been planted.  Birds are known to disperse seeds and perhaps that would explain at least one site, but it is a curious thing, indeed.  As most people think that peonies are not cultivable in warm weather areas, it would seem rare that they could be spread by birds, but callas are growing in my peony garden and they were surely brought in by the same creatures.

Red Charm bloomed early but I found a large one today as I was picking this afternoon.  It appeared from a large red bud but out of place from its dedicated rows.  This happens to me occasionally as I find an odd color popping up in rows known to be a named variety.  This has been a very frustrating event and I’ve spent many lost years trying to label and identify the location of these rogues.

At first I used metal stakes with the pencil that accompanied them from Smith Hawkin.  The writing disappeared and then I used permanent marker and that disappeared as well.  Copper stakes that had names impressed into the metal seemed a good idea but them came out of the ground and were mixed up.  Wooden stakes broke and the writing came off except for wood burned names (too much trouble!).  Then, an idea came to me this year which I hope will settle some of the angst.  I carried five cans of spray paint along with me into the peony beds.  As my soil has a great deal of river rock (round stones), I sprayed them with a color coding system.  I now am using two toned rocks and will soon run out of combinations, but the majority of the problem is now behind me -unless, of course, some animal, dog or person pushes the stones away from the stems of the plants where they are nicely tucked.

How do you cut peonies?  The video on the peony page has some information, but I cut only the minimum of stem needed for each arrangement, thus leaving nourishment on the plant to be reabsorbed back into the roots.

How do you plant peonies?  I’ll provide this information in a future video, but generally, in warm weather areas and in California, the pink buds are planted 1/2″ or so below the surface of the soil.  A plant that hasn’t bloomed here, is generally planted too deeply, although in the colder areas of our country, planting down a couple of inches in necessary to avoid freezing.  Here, it is the opposite – the more cold the better!  Some people have gone to the trouble of putting ice cubes on the plants a few times over the winter and that may help.  I’m too lazy to do that and with hundreds of plants it is not at all feasible!