Peony Addition

We’ve started a peony field. And when I say started, I don’t even mean planted. That’s because we’ve had to survey. We’ve had to pull existing weed barrier and drip lines. We’ve toiled (pun intended). Dug up grass, flattened, spread TAGRO, waited for a giant tarp… got a torch, a terracotta pot, then rain. Rain for days and more days. 

When we started tearing up this field and all its pre-existing items (weed barrier, grass, baby potatoes) I looked around and saw a future of fighting rhizome grass. Within 30 minutes I was searching the web and the local farm store for a silage tarp so we could cover half the plot and burn holes in the tarp for each peony root. This is a method I’ve seen used before with peonies mostly but also dahlias! I order two 14’ x 48’  old billboards from Billboard Vinyls instead of a traditional silage tarp. This is what it sounds like, an old billboard that you can buy to use for whatever. I see a lot of people in the reviews covering their RVs and cars. 

In the meantime, we hand loaded and self delivered 4 (or 5) yards of TAGRO from the City of Tacoma to layer over the field before putting the tarp down. When the tarp finally arrived about two weeks later we were honored with billboard advertisements for Burmuda Grass and for a hotdog deal at QuikTrip. We laid down the billboards then pinned and weighed them down. One half of the field we laid the billboard to prevent any more grass and weeds from springing up (a no till method) and on the other, burnt holes into the billboard using a 9 inch terracotta pot and a torch.

In each hole we loosened the soil, added bone meal, worm castings(vermicast), and some TAGRO to give the soil some life. Bone meal is a good addition to add to roots, tubers, bulbs and the like because of the calcium and phosphorus. You can also sprinkle bone meal around the peony in the spring and work it into the soil (don’t just lay it on top and leave it). Like bone meal, vermicast is a slow release, natural amendment for soil.

When I started planting at our house, I got a huge array of different peony varieties! Coral charm, Bowl of Brass, Raspberry Sunday… there are so many options but you have to be patient. Usually the peonies don’t bloom in magnificence the first couple of years after being planted bare root. Many peony farmers pinch or cut the buds off their peonies the first two or three years so the plant will focus on root development. I’m impatient and greedy to see some blooms so I doubt I’ll do this. 

I started sourcing peonies at local garden centers over the years, such as Christians Nursery near Stanwood, Watsons in Puyallup, Swansons in Seattle and some online like Farmhouse Flower Farm and Adeline’s Peonies from Yakima, WA. Can you tell I like to buy Washington grown? I will saw out of all the peony roots Ives bought, Adeline’s have been by far the biggest and best. I ordered this shipment in bulk from Swedish Touch Peonies out of Iowa, so I’ll be looking forward to how they grow!

I’m sooo looking forward to seeing the field in its full splendor in a couple of years. 

Thanks for toiling with us!