Peonies
A few of you have asked about peonies. We love them, too!
Peonies are one of the most valuable crops you can add to your farm. They are a high-value perennial focal flower that can be divided every few years to multiply your investment. And their flowers can be dry stored and used for events at a later date or shipped to customers far away.
We take advantage of our cold climate to be able to offer peonies several weeks later than farmers south of us.
I buy peony roots pretty much every year. We keep adding more and finding more places to fit them in. We purchase them at 3/5 eye size for a quicker turn around. And while we can’t harvest right away from our newest crops, the purposeful cycle of adding new plants every year insures that we have new varieties blooming and ready for harvest each season.
We look to purchase wholesale peony roots for delivery in the fall. (They need to be ordered in the spring.) But I’m always on the lookout for a good deal and we find that some bulbs companies off flash sales on peony roots in the spring. These roots have taken up space in their coolers after not having been sold off in the fall and their sellers are eager to find homes for them!
With spring coming up, keep an eye out for flash sales. They can be a nice way to grab some varieties that otherwise cost more than you’d like to pay, too. This is how I was introduced to Itoh peonies.
If you are not in a position to purchase peonies now and you’d like to add some this year to your farm, you will want to place an order for roots to plant this fall on the regular planting schedule. Payment is typically due with shipment in the fall for wholesale peony roots.
We have many different kinds of peonies. I started collecting herbaceous peonies due to their lower cost and greater availability. Within that collection I was careful to look for varieties that had different bloom windows.
The Itoh peonies - well - I can’t say enough about them. They seem to make more harvestable stems earlier. These robust plants, when planted at 3/5 eye size, are ready for full harvests in just 2 years on our farm. That means we can earn back our investment and make a profit so much earlier. We also find that the Itohs are more disease resistant. We see fewer instances of botrytis amongst them. My favorite so far is Canary Brilliants. Despite its name, this peony is a gorgeous peachy globe of many petals. A photo of a Canary Brilliants peony was one of our most popular social media images in 2022.
Harvest Window
The window for harvesting peonies here would be crazy if all of our plants were blooming at the same time. Fortunately, peony bloom time can be a little spread out with variety selection that allows for early, mid, and later season harvests.
Still- peony season is fast and furious and even with our intentional bloom spread- we are still on our toes and working to catch all of our blooms at the perfect “marshmallow” stage. During peony season, we are sometimes harvesting 4 times a day in order to capture and save our flowers for sales. And that’s something that hobbyists and new farmers with second jobs may not realize. Growing peonies for cut flower sales requires attention all day long when they are in season. If you’re not able to attend to frequent harvests, your flowers will blow open and be unsale-able.
Planting Schematic
We plant our peonies in mulched rows on a 2ft off-set grid. When I’m working alone, I use a simple jig made with 3 wood sticks shaped like an equilateral triangle with 2ft sides to place the roots on beds and then I follow and plant them. Here is what the plant spacing looks like and how the jig helps ensure proper spacing. I just move a single jig down the row and drop the roots at the points of the triangle as I go. I’ve duplicated the triangle shape below so you can better see how the layout works. We have standard 4ft wide beds across the farm and about 1.5 to 2ft aisles between the rows. We put landscape fabric in the rows so we don’t have to weed or mulch there. The landscape fabric is cut into narrow strips with our hot knife tool.
Our peonies are companion planted with early bulb crops, ground covers, and airy flowers for cutting that do not impede air flow through the plants. When choosing companion plants we look for plants that are resistant to fungal problems and that either bloom before the peonies leaf out, well below the peony canopy along the ground, or above the peony foliage and on thin stems.
Here are some of our favorites: daffodils, muscari, hyacinth, hens and chicks, thyme, kirigami oregano, pansies, allium, daisies, chamomile, strawflower, verbena.
Our collection:
Listed prices are for single bare root plants with 3-5 eyes, along with the year we purchased them and the vendor. I don’t have prices for the varieties that I bought last spring through an Onings sale it was sort of a flash sale— messaged quick from the field to get the order in.
Bartzella (Itoh) (mid) $8.47ea 2022 Netherland Bulb Co.
Bowl of Beauty (mid) $4.83ea 2022 Netherland Bulb Co.
Canary Brilliants (Itoh) (mid) $12ea 2020 Netherland Bulb Co.
Coral Charm (mid) $5.88ea 2017 Ednie, $5.67ea 2018 Ednie
Diana Parks (mid) Onings 2022 spring sale
Duchess de Nemours (mid) $4.65ea 2018 Ednie
Early Scout (early) $4.13ea 2017 Ednie
Felix Crouse (late mid) $4.22ea 2022 Netherland Bulb co.
Festiva Maxima (late) $5.05ea 2017 Ednie, $4.92ea 2018 Ednie, $5.29ea 2019 Ednie
Florence Nicholls (mid) $8.68ea 2019 Ednie
Garden Treasure (Itoh) (mid) $12ea 2020 Netherland Bulb Co.
Monsieur Jules Elie (bought prior to flower farming)
Julia Rose (Itoh) (mid) $12ea 2020 Netherland Bulb Co.
Kansas (bought prior to flower farming)
Karl Rosenfield (late) $3.87ea 2018 Ednie
Laura Dessert (early mid) $5.07ea 2022 Netherland Bulb Co
Le Printemps (mid) $10.74ea 2017 Ednie
Moon River (mid) $7.50ea 2022 Netherland Bulb Co.
Moonstone (mid) $6.27ea 2018 Ednie
Pastel Splendor (mid) Onings 2022 spring sale
Pink Hawaiian Coral (early) $6.27ea 2018 Ednie
Red Charm (early) $8.33ea 2019 Ednie
Red Magic (early mid) $3.86ea 2022 Netherland Bulb Co.
Sarah Bernhardt (late) $3.48ea 2018 Ednie
Shirley Temple (late) $3.86ea 2022 Netherland Bulb Co.
White Cap (late) Onings 2022 spring sale
New to peony production?
I recommend starting with a small collection of varieties in a larger quantity so that you can put together orders/requests for matching stems. It can be fun to collect one of everything, but your ability to sell a variety of stems will be limited to the sales outlets that allow it. (like a farmers’ market or retail one-off orders)
To open yourself to the possibility of wholesale orders or floral design work for an event, I suggest getting a number of plants of just a few varieties. You will also save money this way, as many peony root sellers offer their plants in bulk.
We order several varieties every year and we typically order between 25 and 100 of each of those varieties. This way, our collection grows substantially each year and we are able to offer a significant number of stems for each new variety we’re harvesting from.
Other suggestions:
Do NOT start with varieties that are common to the gardens around you. Sarah Bernhardt is a classic, but if everyone around you has it blooming in their gardens, they’ll be less interested in buying your peonies.
Many peonies have a beautiful scent. Coral Charm does NOT. It is a beautiful and useful peony, but it does not smell very nice. We still grow it. Florists love it for the incredible transformation that it goes through from bright coral to a pale peach.
Suggested Short list for beginner Flower Farmers:
Shirley Temple (beautiful double that is lighter in color than Sarah Bernhardt)
Bartzella (yellow Itoh) Typically a less expensive Itoh.
Canary Brilliants (peach colored double Itoh that is unusual) Pricey roots- but our most popular peony
Duchess de Nemours (white double - very poplar for wedding work)
Red Charm (early double red) Showy and unusual for the farmers market or retail bouquets
Karl Rosenfield (late double dark pink)