I just bought a tree peony, I am not sure where to plan it, the fellow at the nursery said it will get to be about five feet tall. I live in Tsawwassen so sunhine is usually plentiful. Has anyone had luck with this beautiful plant? Do you fertilize it or should I just use bone meal?
Some shade early in the morning is often considered a good thing, so that it does not get sunshine direct onto foliage when there is a late frost. Shouldn't need any fertiliser at all, unless a soil test shows a marked deficiency. This one has never had any.
There are tree peonies at the front entrance to the UBC Botanical Garden. They bloom beautifully each year. Wonderful fragrance!
Very good drainage and air circulation is important. If it's grafted onto a herbaceous root , it can be planted with only 1 or 2 of the tree peony buds or branches above ground to encourage growing it's own roots. Assuming the plant is a 1 or 2 year old graft.
The P. suffruticosa types (such as one shown) are prone to frost injury of the new growth. This can be nasty. I had a newish one (supposed to be a wonderful deep purple) not yet seen in bloom bud up last year and then get blasted by frost, killing all of the upper part of the top. This year's flowerless shoots are coming from near the base (but above the graft).
Hi Ron....At what point in P. suffruticosa's bud break does the foliage become sensitive to frost? Mine has usually broken the bud by this time (this year being no exception) and the shoots develop/mature very slowly but seem to survive our many frosts/freezes that we get between now and early May. It's supposed to be -6ºC here this weekend (which is not unusual) but all this talk of frost sensitivity has me worried. Ditto for Fritillaria persica, it's 1-1/2" tall & supposed to be frost sensitive? Simon
Interesting story. My MIL decided at the last minute that she wanted me to transplant the peony I had given her the year before (which had one bloom the first year). It was in Dec and there was more than a foot of snow on the ground. She was moving into a townhouse so I transplanted into a large pot, thinking it was most likely done for. Anyway, it came back beautifully this spring, and has 6 fat buds on it. I also transplanted a very large specimen from my sister's house when she moved, and it handled the move very well, blooming that spring. I've heard they're picky about being moved, but I've found them to be fairly tough. I have a beautiful 8 yr old tree out front that gives me more than 50 blooms. I say definitely give this plant a fair amount of room as it gets quite wide. That one is about 5-6' wide and the huge heavy blooms means the stems require staking.
Thank youso much for taking the time to reply to my question. It seems yo have had great luck , do you use any fertislizer? Regards, Sara k
I've found tree peonies to be so easy to care for. Nothing special other than digging it a nice hole in a sunny location. They require very little pruning - just snipping off the occasional bit of dead growth. I haven't fertilized other than adding the odd bit of compost. I have 4 trees and found that they are a bit slow to take off the 1st or 2nd year, and then they really start to have good growth/bloom.
