Transplanting peonies...now?
I have a chance to get starts of some peonies that I planted many years ago at our old house. I kow they should be planted in the fall but it's now or never. Is there anything I should do to make sure they have the best chance of thriving?
Peonies can be transplanted in spring...just don't cover more than 3 inches deep. They are heavy feeders and a annual top dressing of bonemeal or add well decomposed manure mix in the soil before planting. Just a friendly garden reminder once disturbe, some will not bloom the first year. Once peonies are established one needs not to divide for another 10-12 years
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watermelonpunch
- Senior Member
- Posts: 207
- Joined: Sun May 05, 2013 8:04 am
- Location: Pennsylvania USA
I'm wondering how this peony transplanting went... any update??
Last year toward the end of May someone noticed that I had a sad gangly sparse peony growing under an evergreen tree (like a pine or maybe it's a fir I don't know)...
We rent our house off a friend of the family... and she had planted it there in maybe 2008 (she said the pine tree was much smaller then!)
Obviously it couldn't stay where it was. It's kind of hinky under that tree what with all the pine needles, and mushrooms & some kind of fungus thing I found under there at one point. Like these HUGE round mushrooms grow under there. It's kind of creepy with no light under there. And I'm not inclined to mess around with it other than having my husband prune back some of the branches out of the way, because I'm allergic to all sorts of trees with needles.
Last year was my first year with a proper outside garden (only had containers & houseplants before).
So I looked up what the peony would like, and I chose a spot it should like, used compost, plant fertilizer, followed transplanting instructs. I mean right down to digging the hole in advance deeper & wider than I thought I'd need, and then using a ruler & junk to fill it in for exactly the length of the root to the shoulder to be correctly situated, and so I wouldn't have to upset the root fitting it... the root was kind of at an odd angle.
So in like 88F weather at the end of the day... because we were expecting rain that night... I got all suited up from head to toe with a hooded sweatshirt, gloves, long sleeves, socks tucked into jeans (because I'm allergic)... I think I put on a ski mask type hat... made sure all my skin was covered, and went under the tree to dig out the 1ft tall 1 stem peony properly. It was HORRIBLY uncomfortable. And I still wound up itchy.
(I remember it clearly because it was that day that I was thinking maybe this gardening thing I always dreamed of wasn't all it was cracked up to be!!! lol)
Well, day after day, I made sure it was moist where I put it, and it just got worse & worse, until my spouse said, "Do we have to keep that dead plant there?" ha ha
(Of course he always had to drive around it with the lawn mower - and I had it flagged so he wouldn't get too close. A little flag next to what looked like basically a dead branch sticking out of the ground LOL)
I refused to dig it up after taking such pains to transplant it. I just kept hoping & trying. I kept watering it on my dry-days rounds even though it looked quite dead.
So finally I think it was August by this time, I cut it back right to about 1-2 inches from the ground.
Well lo & behold, this April, I spotted what looked like a BETTER straighter nicer version of the peony in the spot where that one had died... so it hadn't really died at all!
By now, it's green, and even a little bigger. (I'll have to take another picture of it.)
No idea what kind of peony it is. And I suspect I'll have to wait until next year to see any blooms. But I'd given up all hope, but apparently they're not too easy to kill!!
Last year toward the end of May someone noticed that I had a sad gangly sparse peony growing under an evergreen tree (like a pine or maybe it's a fir I don't know)...
We rent our house off a friend of the family... and she had planted it there in maybe 2008 (she said the pine tree was much smaller then!)
Obviously it couldn't stay where it was. It's kind of hinky under that tree what with all the pine needles, and mushrooms & some kind of fungus thing I found under there at one point. Like these HUGE round mushrooms grow under there. It's kind of creepy with no light under there. And I'm not inclined to mess around with it other than having my husband prune back some of the branches out of the way, because I'm allergic to all sorts of trees with needles.
Last year was my first year with a proper outside garden (only had containers & houseplants before).
So I looked up what the peony would like, and I chose a spot it should like, used compost, plant fertilizer, followed transplanting instructs. I mean right down to digging the hole in advance deeper & wider than I thought I'd need, and then using a ruler & junk to fill it in for exactly the length of the root to the shoulder to be correctly situated, and so I wouldn't have to upset the root fitting it... the root was kind of at an odd angle.
So in like 88F weather at the end of the day... because we were expecting rain that night... I got all suited up from head to toe with a hooded sweatshirt, gloves, long sleeves, socks tucked into jeans (because I'm allergic)... I think I put on a ski mask type hat... made sure all my skin was covered, and went under the tree to dig out the 1ft tall 1 stem peony properly. It was HORRIBLY uncomfortable. And I still wound up itchy.
(I remember it clearly because it was that day that I was thinking maybe this gardening thing I always dreamed of wasn't all it was cracked up to be!!! lol)
Well, day after day, I made sure it was moist where I put it, and it just got worse & worse, until my spouse said, "Do we have to keep that dead plant there?" ha ha
(Of course he always had to drive around it with the lawn mower - and I had it flagged so he wouldn't get too close. A little flag next to what looked like basically a dead branch sticking out of the ground LOL)
I refused to dig it up after taking such pains to transplant it. I just kept hoping & trying. I kept watering it on my dry-days rounds even though it looked quite dead.
So finally I think it was August by this time, I cut it back right to about 1-2 inches from the ground.
Well lo & behold, this April, I spotted what looked like a BETTER straighter nicer version of the peony in the spot where that one had died... so it hadn't really died at all!
By now, it's green, and even a little bigger. (I'll have to take another picture of it.)
No idea what kind of peony it is. And I suspect I'll have to wait until next year to see any blooms. But I'd given up all hope, but apparently they're not too easy to kill!!