Life of a Peony Grower

Got awakened at 1:29 this morning by the heavy rain downpour. Immediately, my reaction was I hope it won't rain too much as I just planted lots and lots of peony roots! And these roots can rot from too much water.

I can totally empathize with the life of a farmer now. Their farms are only partially in their control. Nature has the biggest control over it. Rain, extreme cold weather, too hot a climate. Now, we've these events portrayed in the movies. We've felt for the people in the stories, But when the movie was over, that was it. Living first hand the concern, having something at stake - that's a different story.

My crew and I have been preparing the additional planting spot for the peonies for over a month now, planted a great majority of the peony roots, and preparing for the weed control aspect.

In the meantime, we are also re-purposing 2 garden beds originally created to be a full sun, drought resistant bed into a display garden for peonies. Which meant taking out a lot of plants -grasses, sage and similar plants. In other words, lots of digging, relocating plants, adding new soil, re-shaping the beds and finally, planting the peonies.

A visitor to the Peony Farm and I were talking aobut it, and she said "keeping your eyes on the vision of a beautiful garden is what keeps gardeners like us going and moving forward even with all the hard work involved".

She said is just so. That is the life of the gardener!

And as a peony grower, its sharing a Passion for Peonies and creating a garden that visitors will enjoy and find beauty in; beauty that would inspire them to create their own beautiful peony garden.

Fall is a many splendored thing

Looking at the colors in the garden and the neighboring properties, I can't help but be in awe of the the colors provided by the trees around us. And I thank everyone who planted trees and shrubs to provide this explosion of colors in the fall. Living here in the Pacific Northwest, one of the things I decided is that I will have flowers and color during all 4 seasons. I didn't want to face fall and especially bleak winter with nothing going on in my garden. And so, I chose plants and trees that would provide color during these seasons. Here is a of picture of how the garden looks right now.




I followed this line of thinking when I planted the flowering plants: dahlias. lilies and peonies in the garden. I admit, I get greedy about flowers. I wanted to make sure I have flowers to enjoy outside and flowers to bring into the house all year long. Yes, there is a lot of work involved. But, I can't tell you how happy it makes me to be surrounded by this beauty and fragrance!

For those of you interested in peonies, I just posted on my website: www.ilovepeonies.com the blooming times of different peonies. I hope that this helps you in your selection of peonies.

How does a Healthy bare root peony look like? and fall care.

The other day, during my driftwood sculpting class, one of the ladies asked what do I do for a living. Of course, I simply had to tell her about my Peony Farm. She eagerly pursued the conversation and related the fact that she purchased a bare root peony a couple of years ago and is wondering why it didn't bloom.

Having ruled out all the other reasons why it didn't bloom, (planted too deep, competing with other roots, bad location, not getting enough sun, etc) - we narrowed it down to "the roots we received were not healthy". So, I described it to her and also suggested she log in to: www.ilovepeonies.com in the About Peonies page so she could have a good picture of how it should look like.

And, just like other plants in our garden when we do what is commonly referred to as "putting to bed your plants for the fall season", there is one thing we have to do for peonies as well. When the foliage starts yellowing, cut the foliage down to about 1-2" from the ground. This eliminates the possibility of any disease overwintering and affecting your next year's bloom. By the way, if you are thinking of transplanting any peony plant, this is the time to do it. Remember, peonies must be planted to within an 1" or 2" from the ground. See picture.

Planting the Peony roots

Starting our Happy Valley Grower Peony farm

We started the Peony section at our Happy Valley Grower Peony farm this year and have made a lot of progress as you can see from the photo.

We have now virtually completed our peony planting.. There we were (my husband, my garden helpers and myself) in the intermittent rain and sun digging holes, moving soil, mixing compost, laying out the rows for the peonies, dividing tubers, and then planting a total of more than 150 peony root tubers.

There are 2 sites at the Peony Farm - one for the plants we are growing for propagation and the other for the peony plants for sale.

It is so exciting , looking so beautiful, and the flowers aren’t even in bloom yet. As a matter of fact, there is nothing showing yet other than my signs,. a few tubers barely breaking ground and the muddy footprints.

Dirty as we were, we are excitedly looking forward to Spring. Just imagine the mass of vibrant, colorful, and amazingly huge Peony flowers in bloom come May. What a sight that will be!

Tomorrow is reserved for my own garden where I will tend to my plants and do the fall chores of cutting back plants and preparing to put to bed the plants for fall.

This is how a healthy bare root peony looks like.