I got this too! The offer is too good to resist. I ordered 6 peonies! One of which is Golden Angel which has been on my wanted list since I first saw it.
Thanks Anya! I am sorry that you bought the peonies before the sale. I should not buy anymore either as I currently have no available permanent bed for them to go into. I guess I will just cram them in somewhere and move them out later.
I thought there were some very good buys in there for 40% off!! Golden Angel is one of them, and if anyone doesn't have Lemon Chiffon, that is a great price!
I am resisting!!
LG - My garden grows with love and a lot of hard work.
I still have a few peonies left to plant that I have no room for currently! (and it already snowed here last night!!) No business even looking there...but somehow I bet I will anyway
I ordered a couple of coral peonies ('Coral Charm' and 'Pink Hawaiian Coral') from Song Sparrow.
I also ordered a set of 3 heavy cloth grow bags that are 12 gallon in size and I am going to see how well the peonies will do in a grow bag. It should not be too much different from any sort of container planting. They'll probably enjoy the warmth of my garage for much of the winter. Any idea how long they need to be in the cold? I am guessing 4-6 weeks and I am inclined to make that start about February 1st.
The return of perennials in the spring can feel like once again seeing an old friend
Top, these corals are wonderful! I will love them! How warm is it in your garage? 50 F is ideal temperature for growing feeding roots in the fall as far as I know. People from warm areas can tell you if higher temperatures can trigger growth of leaves. When I knew close to nothing about peonies I bought a root on sale in October and planted it in a pot and put it on a window sill right away to grow it. It started to grow leaves pretty soon though on the window sill it was colder than room temperature. Of course the light triggered the growth too. I think even if your peonies don't get cold treatment one winter they will survive, they maybe won't bloom next season but that's OK I guess.
I am hoping to use the garage for dahlia tuber storage (50-40 degrees) and need to get a thermometer to measure / control it. I've got a pet door in there that I can raise / lower to help with temp control. Anyhow, for the peonies, I was hoping that I could keep it cool enough to keep the peonies dormant, but warm enough to encourage root growth for much of the winter. I am mostly uncertain about how much real cold to give them; being in bags means that their deeper roots are probably just as reachable as the crowns.
The return of perennials in the spring can feel like once again seeing an old friend
Top, I overwinter peonies in pots in a cold room where the temperature is 30-40F for a few months and most peonies bloom in spring. On the Song Sparrow website they say: "Peonies need a cold period to bloom; they require between 500-1000 winter chilling hours, between 32-40 degrees F to flower successfully". Annette here used grow bags too and they worked fine for her. Good luck!
I ordered and received and planted Paeonia 'Lemon Chiffon' and Paeonia 'Picotee' from songsparrow. The roots were somewhat on the smaller side, but it made for an easy planting. Picotee was really small, but it is a smaller peony. It almost had 3 eyes.
The roots I received from Solaris and Swenson this year were considerably larger (twice as large).
I received roots from Songsparrow the first time this fall and roots were twice smaller than those from other reliable sources. So they were planted in smaller pots and it will be easier to plant them in the garden next year.
Topdecker, I used growbags for the first time last winter, stored roots in the garage until all frost danger was over in my area then moved them outside in the shade in June. I do have 2 windows in the garage so they got some light. They all budded out just as they would outside, actually had a few bloom in the garage. Have even more in there this year already! If you're planting herbaceous 12 gallon bags are probably overkill, don't think I have a herbaceous in anything larger than a 7 gallon, most fit in 3 gallon bags. 12 gallon would probably fit one of the huge Adelmans or Solaris woody roots easily
The 12 gallon size is what I ordered. The dimensions on the container are:
15.75 x 15.75 x 11.75 inches
A gallon supposedly takes .13 cubic feet of soil, so 12 gallons should be 1.56 cubic feet (or an 18" cube). This container isn't large enough to hold 12 gallons of soil. If I had to guess, I would say that it is actually an 8 or 9 gallon container.
Not to say that it still isn't going to be overkill.
Top
The return of perennials in the spring can feel like once again seeing an old friend
Giving them extra space is a good thing, I try to limit the size of the bags because the bigger ones are pretty heavy when filled! Also running out of space in the garage super quick!
Yeah, the weight is a bit worrisome. I've heard that these 12 gallon containers are pretty difficult just after you water them which makes sense.
I also read somewhere that a grow bag loses moisture 2.5 times faster than a ground planting, so another downside is that I will have to be really careful to water them regularly.
The return of perennials in the spring can feel like once again seeing an old friend
I had mine inside the garage. I deep watered them twice the entire winter by putting them in a larger container and completely soaking them, all were fine this spring. I have far too many in the garage to deep water, am hoping more frequent top watering will be enough.
I received roots from Songsparrow the first time this fall and roots were twice smaller than those from other reliable sources. So they were planted in smaller pots and it will be easier to plant them in the garden next year.
