Why You Want a Peony, and What You Are Actually Buying
Peony forward arrangements.
The first peony root I planted looked like something I should have set out with the trash. Brown, knobby, about the size of my hand, with a few pink nubs on it that I later learned were called eyes. I stood in the yard in late October holding it, and I was certain I had been had. That plant is still blooming. It will be blooming long after I am done.
Peonies have been cultivated in China for more than two thousand years, first as medicine and then as the flower emperors kept behind walls and wrote poems about. The genus takes its name from Paeon, physician to the Greek gods, who dug a root on Mount Olympus and used it to heal a wound.
Festiva Maxima, the enormous white one with a flick of crimson at its heart, was introduced in 1851 and is still among the best white peonies money can buy. Sarah Bernhardt arrived in 1906 and has never gone out of fashion. You are not buying a trend. You are buying something that has already outlasted every gardener who ever doubted it.
So what recommends a peony for a Virginia garden.
It will outlive you. Sited well and left alone, a peony blooms in the same spot for fifty years, and there are plants past the century mark still putting on a show. Your granddaughter will cut these for her own table.
Deer will not touch it. Rabbits will not either. If you have stood at the window watching something browse your hostas to stubs, that fact alone is worth the twenty-seven dollars. It asks for almost nothing. No spraying. No dividing. No coddling. A peony actively resents being moved, which means your entire job is putting it in the right place the first time and then leaving it be, it is the best cut flower there is. Six inches across, on stems strong enough to hold them up, and fragrant enough that you smell the arrangement before you walk into the room.
The catch, if you want to call it that, is patience. Year one you get leaves. Year two, a few flowers. Year three is when it starts earning its keep, and then it keeps earning for decades. We would rather tell you that now than have you standing in the yard next May wondering what you did wrong. Now, the planting. It is not complicated, and there is exactly one way to get it wrong.
Where to Get Yours
Everything above is why the Nansemond River Garden Club sells peonies. Peonies with a Purpose is our annual fundraiser, and it works about as simply as a thing can: you order from our shop, the grower ships the roots to your door in time for fall planting, and nobody has to meet anybody in a parking lot. What your order pays for is the work we have been doing in Suffolk since 1928. The Heritage and Scatter Gardens at Cedar Hill Cemetery. The landscaping at Festival Park. Ecology Camp, which has been putting rising third and fourth graders outside every June since 1981.
So you get a flower that will outlive you, and Suffolk gets something too. That is a good afternoon's shopping by any measure.
Peony Planting by Zone
Peonies need a stretch of winter cold to set flower buds, roughly 500 to 1,000 hours below 40 degrees. That is why the planting window slides later and the planting depth gets shallower as you move south. In a cold zone you bury the root to protect it. Here in 8a you keep it close to the surface so it collects every hour of chill the winter offers.
| Zone | Planting window | Eye depth below soil | What to know |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | Late August into September | 2 inches | Plant early so the roots settle before the ground freezes. Mulch heavily the first winter, then pull it back in spring. |
| 4 | September into mid-October | 2 inches | Reliable peony country. Nearly every variety performs well. |
| 5 | Late September into October | 1.5 to 2 inches | Ideal conditions. Full sun all day is fine. |
| 6 | October into early November | 1.5 inches | Full sun, with generous spacing for air movement. |
| 7 | October into late November | 1 inch | A little afternoon shade extends the life of an open bloom. |
| 8a | Late October into early December, while the ground is workable | 0.5 to 1 inch | Shallow planting is essential. Morning sun with afternoon relief. Early and midseason varieties bloom more dependably than late ones. |
| 8b | November into December | 0.5 inch | Marginal. Stay with early bloomers and the most heat-tolerant varieties. |
| 9 and warmer | Not recommended for herbaceous peonies | n/a | Not enough winter chill to set flower buds. Itoh and tree peonies are a better bet. |
Suffolk and the greater Hampton Roads area sit in Zone 8a.
