How To Support Peonies

Are there any Peony Growers out there? They’re one of my favorite flowers for garden or landscape design. They take up a large area, they’re easy to grow, and multiply and get fuller every year. They also make for the perfect sharing flower. You can dig up the tubers and share them with your friends.

Peonies do tend to spread out and flop over and are need of some support system. They make cages that can be used to keep the blooms from drooping but I go for what’s simple and inexpensive and well hidden amongst the flowers making them still visually beautiful and organic.

Several years ago I started using cheap old knee high panty hoes. I used to be able to find 10 to a pack for $1 but not any more; like everything else prices are higher than ever before. Any who they are disposable and always last for the whole season.

All I do is gather the plant up in my arms and tie one knee high around it. Voila it supports the blooms from dropping perfectly. It’s such an easy fix and at the end of the season when the plant starts to die back I cut the plant back right under the panty hoe and dispose of it all; it couldn’t be simpler.

My peonies are planted in the vegetable garden so I also have veggies planted in and around the flowers. By supporting them it gives the other plants more room to grow and have better access to sunlight.

I honestly know no one who wears knee highs anymore; but if you do have them save them once they get a run. You can wash them and reuse them and don’t have to spend a penny of your own money to do it.

Right now I have dark pink, medium pink, light pink, and yellow peonies. All the pink tones are from my Grama Reds garden and the yellow are from a local nursery. I found the yellow on clearance at the end of the season and assumed they were miss marked with being yellow. I grabbed them anyway thinking no matter what color they were I’d still love them and guess what they were tagged correctly, so I now have beautiful butter yellow peonies with ruffled edge petals.