#Trending: Your Own Peony Cut Flower Garden
Imagine feeling the warmth of the sun as you take in the smells and colours of your own cut flower garden. Scroll below to learn how to provide your home and friends + family with endless, sweet smelling bouquets.
The Peony Season in Canada
The herbaceous + intersectional peony blooming season in Canada last 6 to 8 weeks in length. Peony varieties bloom during one of three parts of the season: early, mid, or late. In the southern most growing zones in Canada, this means that early blooming varieties begin in mid May, mid season varieties late May to mid June, and finishing with the late mainly 'lactiflora' varieties into the second and third weeks of June. Some itoh or intersectional varieties may bloom again as the late season lactiflora are finishing up. Given this, you can have a succession of peony blooms in your garden throughout spring if you plan accordingly.
Trending
The intersection between eco-conscious millennials who are amazing supporters of buying local, the DIY Gen Xers, and working from home through a pandemic has led to a number of understandable trends in the floral industry.
#Cutflowergarden: with all the time we are spending at home, filling the our houses and gardens with the sweet smell and look of a bouquets of flowers has become a simple way to find joy in the everyday
#shoplocal: grabbing a coffee and taking a drive out to local greenhouses, nurseries, and flower farms is becoming a popular social outing with friends or family. People are also favouring it as a way to support locally owned businesses over big corporations citing the benefits of higher quality goods and the personal connections they are able to make with business owners
#alacarteflowers #upick: mixing things up is the spice of life and society is catching on. Weddings for example are seeing a trend towards 'a la carte' options rather than preset packages to suit brides' unique tastes and flower farms are adding u pick options
#onlineshopping: whether to keep safe, save time, or simple convenience -more an more people are moving away from shopping in person at big box locations and are choosing to make their purchases by either by buying local or online for delivery to their doorstep
Based on this, many people are using online shopping opportunities to create their 'a la carte' cut flower gardens in their own backyards. With local flower farms and pinterest as muses, you can now create your own. Whether you are a beginner flower gardener or have years of experience, planting peony roots is an easy way to get started because they are perennials that come back every year to give bigger and better blooms!
Here are our 'Top 10 Favourite Peonies for Cut Gardens' to get you started:
Duchesse de Nemours
Sarah Bernhardt
Coral Charm
Festiva Maxima
Etched Salmon
Gardenia
Shirley Temple
Raspberry Sundae
She's My Star
Alexander Fleming
The above list includes popular peonies we carry in our shop that will provide you with a variety of colour, flower shape, fragrance and the look you are going for when creating a peony bouquet for yourself or someone dear to you. In fact, all of the peonies in our shop are curated for their fragrance and cut flower excellence. So be sure to check them all out!
Planning
Your peony cut flower garden should be in an area with full sun with well drained soil. You can plant your peonies in groupings arranged by colour or bloom time. When planning, be sure to look at the plant height of each variety that you choose and its bloom time, making sure that shorter plants are planted in front of taller plants. Each of our product pages lists key planning information on each peony variety such as height and bloom time in an easy to use chart at the bottom of each description. See an example here: Peonia Lorelei
Planting Arrangements
Common planting arrangements for peony cut flower gardens include: single rows with plants spaced 3 ft apart, double rows with plants spaced 3 ft apart on centre, or a diamond shaped pattern with peonies spaced 3 ft apart on centre as illustrated below.
And if you want to continue your cut flower garden beyond peony season. We recommend some of our favourite cut flower annuals:
Dahlias (perennial tubers)
Double Click Cosmos
Benary Giant Zinnias
Snapdragons
Sweet Peas
Sunflowers
Regardless of what varieties or peony colours you choose, your own cut flower garden is the gift that keeps on giving!
Other Cut Flower Resources We Love:
Floret Flower's Free Online Workshop- Erin shares in depth knowledge into planting your own cut flowers
The Peony Garden at Nichols Arboretum- has an interactive peony map and peony database, it is also where Ang fell in love with peonies as a U of Michigan undergrad. Go Blue!!