The Garden Journal

We can’t wait for warmer weather to come, and stay, around here! Watching the weather apps, and trying to predict what will happen next has been a daily guessing game for when we can plan to move temperature sensitive plants out of the greenhouse safely. If you came to our Easter/Spring Plant Sale (thank you!) you know that we were pulling tomatoes out of the greenhouse for those of you daring enough to take them on yourself with this erratic spring weather. 

Speaking of predictions, the popular, and likely most asked question we get is “When will the peonies bloom?” followed by “When is the Peony Sip & Stroll?”. I’d love to be able to pull out a crystal ball and tell you  specific dates of when each variety will grace us with their annual show, but it unfortunately is a tricky thing to guess, and accurately predict. More importantly, I cannot with any great certainty tell you when we will have the most varieties blooming at once. 

If you’re new to peonies, a typical season can last between 5-6 weeks from start to finish of the last varietals opening up. It starts with Early season blooms, like the Corals, and Red Charm, to name a few. Silver Dawn is usually our first to the party, and usually the quickest to fade, whereas our corals and Red Charm put on a longer, and glorious show. Gotta love those fully double blooms that just show off. Overlapping the Early types, are the Mid-Season, with some variability depending on type, followed by the Late Season blooms. Planting one or some of each type in your garden guarantees a longer showing.

However, we’ve had some pretty atypical weather patterns over the last several years, and peonies have been blooming later than usual, and 1 year our field flushed out and was done in 2 weeks from start to end. This is not normal, and adds to the complexity of knowing bloom times. The question actually fills me with anxiety, as I think speaking aloud when I think peonies will open holds me to a standard I’m expected to hold up. An impossible task as a grower. There are only so many things I can do to guarantee peony blooms, but controlling the weather and seasonal temperatures is not one of them.