Plant a Peony Paradise

Enhance the beauty and structure of your garden with peonies. These woody perennial plants are low-maintenance and their beauty just can’t be beat. Check out the three main types of peonies…

Herbaceous Peonies
These are the most well known type of peony and produce beautiful cut flowers. These perennial peonies die back to the ground every winter and will reemerge each spring. They grow in full sun but can benefit from some afternoon shade here in Hampton Roads. Most prefer neutral to slightly alkaline soil and good drainage is essential. The flower stems may not be strong enough to keep the often heavy flamboyant flowers upright and staking is recommended. These low maintenance shrubs are deer proof.

Choose from these varieties: Hawaiian Coral, Pink Parfait, Primevere, Sea Shell, Shirley Temple, Paul Wild, Miss America, Do Tell, Bowl of Beauty Karl Rosenfield, and Velvet Splendor.

Tree Peonies
Are not exactly trees, in fact they are long-lived, hardy deciduous shrubs. The best spot to plant these are in a sunny place. They can tolerate some light shade but the plants may begin to grow towards the light. Their woody structure allows them to support beautiful dinner sized plate blooms. The colorful and exotic flowers are available in orange, red and yellow blooms. After blooming, they provide structure in the garden with deep green leaves in summer and bronze-purple foliage in fall. These peonies grow between 3-7 feet tall.

Choose from orange, red and yellow varieties.

Itoh Peonies
Are a cross of the green foliage and exotic blooms of the tree peony and the seasonal growing habit of herbaceous peonies. Itoh peonies are grown for their huge, beautiful blooms and lush green foliage. Historically, Itohs were challenging to grow and thus hard to find and rather expensive. But that’s all changed. A mature plant may produce 50 or more dinner plate size flowers on strong, short stems that do not requiring staking. With Dinner plate sized flowers, a nicely shaped plant, deer resistant and easy to grow. What’s not to love about these beauties? These peonies are more compact in size and grow 2.5 feet tall – 3 feet wide.

Choose from these varieties: Bartzella, Kopper Kettle, Dandy Keiko and Takara.

(selection varies per location)