Peony
Paeonia hybrids. PAEONIACEAE.
Planting and Growing Peony
You’ll find everything you need to know to plant and grow peony in the accompanying table’s tabs:
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- Flowers, foliage, and root structure of peony
- Plant hardiness and growing conditions for peony
- Season of bloom and planting time for peony
- When, how deep, and where to plant peony
- How to plant peony
- Watering, fertilizing, care, and pests or diseases of peony
- Landscape and container uses of peony
- Comments about peony and its features
Ants and Peony
Ants and peony have a curious relationship worth understanding.
While ants on the buds and flowers are a nuisance when peony are cut for use in floral displays, they do no harm to the plants. The ants gather the plant’s blossoms’ sweet nectar, but never eat or damage their flowers.
As University of Missouri/IPM states, “Extrafloral nectaries are present outside of the peony flower buds. These plant organs secrete nectar, which is composed of sugars (sucrose, glucose, and fructose), amino acids, lipids, and other organic compounds that are a food source for ants.”
The ants are also fierce in protecting the peony blossoms, their food source, from other flower-feeding insects. Examine the flowers closely, and you’ll quickly see ants attacking and killing other harmful insects drawn to their flowers.
It’s a myth, however, that peonies actually require the ants to bloom.
So, in the end, what ants and peony have is a shared and beneficial relationship that botanists call “mutualism.” Both your flowering peony and the ants drawn to their blossoms benefit from each other’s presence.
Growing Peony
More than 30 species of rounded, shrublike, sometimes rhizomatous or tuberous, deciduous perennial herbs, 18–60 in. (45–150 cm) tall, to 6 ft. (1.8 m) in tree species. Hairy, shiny, or textured, green, deeply lobed leaves, 3–6 in. (75–150 mm) long.
Planting and Care Guide
Blooms
Showy, cream, pink, purple, white, yellow, red, single to double, papery, often fragrant flowers, 2–10 in. (50–250 mm) wide, often with contrasting centers, in spring–summer.
Best Climates
Semi-hardy. Plant as annual, zones 3–6; ground hardy, zones 7–10.
Soil Type and Fertility
Moist, well-drained loam. Fertility: Rich. 5.5–6.5 pH.
Where and How to Plant
Late summer–autumn in full sun to partial shade, 2–4 ft. (60–120 cm) apart.
Proper Care
Very easy. Keep moist. Fertilize annually in spring. Mulch in winter. Stake tall cultivars. Protect from heat. Propagate by division.
About This Plant
Good choice for accents, backgrounds, borders, paths in cottage, heritage, formal gardens. Good for cutting. Ant, slug, snail and botrytis, phytophthora blight susceptible.
Ants are a nuisance on cut flowers but cause no damage to peony flowers [See discussion of Ants and Peony, this page].