The peony is looked after for a whole year, and they enjoy flowering for ten days. So say the Chinese gardeners.

And yet, this shortcoming does not prevent the same Chinese from cultivating this regal flower for two thousand (!) Years…

Despite the short flowering period, peonies are very popular. After all, their foliage is highly decorative and, unlike flowers, pleases the eye from May until late autumn.

Peonies growing in the wild are modest in form, but spectacular, thanks to the juicy color of large inflorescences against the backdrop of lush foliage.

Peonies can be classified according to types, types and structure of the flower. If you are going to purchase this perennial, then you should know that peonies are:

• tree-like (extraordinary colors, however, thermophilic and require special care in our climate) live up to a hundred years, have about 500 varieties,
• herbaceous (the most unpretentious), with the right agricultural technology, they live without a transplant for up to 50 years, there are more than 4000 varieties,
• Ito peonies are hybrids obtained by the breeder Toichi Ito by crossing the herbaceous lactiflora with yellow tree-like ones (the aerial part dies off for the winter, the rhizome is tree-like, they bloom longer, they are extremely good).

In order for peonies to delight you with lush flowering, it is important to follow the correct agricultural practices.

Peonies are very painful to transplant, adapting to new conditions from one to three years, so you should immediately consider the landing site.

Counting on abundant flowering, you should know that peonies need good lighting and moderately moist soil — do not plant them in dry areas.

You should not choose too open an area for planting — these flowers (especially tree-like ones) do not like drafts.

If the summer turned out to be dry, then 2-3 buckets of water are poured under a bush once a week.

A good top dressing for these perennials will be ash and bone meal. They are introduced in early autumn to prepare the plants for wintering.

Tree peonies for the winter should be sheltered from frost. At the end of autumn, they are generously mulched with a thick layer of dry peat, and before frost, the bush is completely covered with spruce branches, additionally wrapped with agrofiber on top. When the bush reaches a meter in height, you can limit yourself to mulching the roots.

POPULAR VIEWS

Peony officinalis (Paeonia officinalis)

• Growth area: Central and Southern Europe.
• Flowering period: June.
• Color spectrum: Dark red.
• Height: 40-80 cm.
• Growing conditions: sun, partial shade, moisture-intensive humus soils.
• Peculiarities: herbaceous perennial or shrub, medicinal plant.

Peony evasive, Maryin root (Paeonia anomala)

• Growth area: Siberia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, China.
• Flowering period: May June.
• Color spectrum: purple, pink.
• Height: up to 1 m.
• Growing conditions: fertile soils, sunny places.
• Peculiarities: rhizomatous perennial, medicinal plant, the most frost-resistant of the genus.

foreign peony (Paeonia peregrina)

• Growth area: dry forests of Europe.
• Flowering period: May June.
• Color spectrum: dark pink
• Height: 40-50 cm.
• Growing conditions: fertile drained soils, rockeries.
• Peculiarities: highly decorative herbaceous perennial with very expressive flowers.

Peony lactiflora (Paeonia lactiflora)

• Growth area: Mongolia, China, Korea, Japan, Russian Far East.
• Flowering period: May June.
• Color spectrum: white.
• Height: 60-100 cm.
• Growing conditions: open and shady places, soils without stagnant moisture.
• Peculiarities: herbaceous perennial with large flowers, very hardy.

tree peony (Paeonia × suffruticosa)

• Growth area: hybrid from China.
• Flowering period: second half of May-June.
• Color spectrum: White yellow. pink, red, purple.
• Height: up to 1.5 m.
• Growing conditions: in nature, it grows in rocky areas, hence the love of the sun, secluded places and drained soils.
• Peculiarities: deciduous shrub, blooms profusely (up to 100 buds per bush) with large beautiful flowers.

Peony narrow-leaved, raven (Paeonia tenuifolia)

• Growth area: steppe regions of the Balkans, Crimea, Caucasus, southern Eastern Europe.
• Flowering period: May June.
• Color spectrum: bright red, purple.
• Height: 10-50 cm.
• Growing conditions: moisture-intensive loam, sunny places.
• Peculiarities: herbaceous perennial with very narrow leaves and non-double flowers up to 8 cm in diameter.

All peonies are very different from each other in the structure of flowers.

Non-terry flowers, have only one or two rows of wide petals surrounding a center with yellow stamens. Basically, these are botanical species and varieties with an unusual shape of petals for species.

Anemone peony flowers are single row, with five or more outer petals, the central part consists of staminodes without anthers, they are colored like petals.

Japanese the shape of peonies is very similar to the previous group, but their staminodes (stamens transformed into reed petals) are narrower, the lower part is the color of the petals, the upper is golden.

Semi-double peony flower species consist of seven rows of outer petals with stamens in the center.

Terry crowned peonies consist of three tiers of petals, the two lower petals are wide, the upper one forms a ring of narrow petals — a crown.

Terry semi-, spherical or bomb-shaped peonies, when fully opened, have a spherical shape, while the lower row is horizontal, the upper petals are dissected.

Terry pinkindeed, they look like a rose, their petals are the same, wide and rounded.

NUANCE. In order for the peony flowers to be large and lush, stepchildren are removed from the main stem in the spring at the vegetation stage.

PION IN LANDSCAPE DESIGN

First of all, a peony is a large array of leaves that blooms only in spring.

For this reason, the peony is assigned the role of an accent in the garden: they are planted on the lawn, along the paths, the fence, against the background of stones.

It’s not that small.

As for the peony in the flower garden, it plays the first violin there during the flowering period, and after that it serves only as a background.

COMBINATION IN SHAPE AND COLOR

Peonies of different varieties do not mix well with each other.

However, a successful combination of colors in combination with decorative foliage can make them friends.

In the photo on the right: pink and purple peonies look harmoniously paired thanks to the purple geyhera leaves at their foot.

The best environment for these flowers will be plants that bloom in other periods: earlier or later than the end-May-beginning of June.

In spring, the clearing around the peonies is filled with bulbous primroses — not too close to the roots, within a radius of about a meter.

An alternative to primroses is fragrant violet, it blooms twice: in spring and autumn. Covers the top layer of the soil, protecting it from drying out.

The rounded curtain of peony leaves is impressed by plants with a vertical orientation of the stem and inflorescences: physostegia, iris, allium.

The constant companions of peonies are conifers and decorative leafy perennials.

In recent years, breeders have been working on breeding dwarf varieties for rockeries. However, the existing ones also blend well with the texture of stone and concrete.

REPRODUCTION AND TRANSPLANT

Despite the fact that there is more than one method of propagating peonies, used mainly by breeders, only two remain the best for amateurs: dividing the bush and rhizome.

The root is divided in early spring, dug up, washed and cut into segments with three buds.

Delenki are treated with a manganese solution, sprinkled with ash and planted in a school no deeper than 5 cm.

For dividing the bush, the best period is August-September. The plant will have the opportunity to adapt, and with the right agricultural technology and choice of location, it will be possible to bloom the next year.

Bushes aged 4-6 years are most suitable for dividing.

Before planting a peony in a permanent place, they dig a cone-shaped hole 70 cm deep and wide. It is filled with a mixture of fertile soil, peat, humus, wood ash and bone meal.

In the future, the bush will occupy a volume of 1 m in diameter. Therefore, neighbors should not be planted closer than 80 cm from it.

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