Peonies are highly desired for their lush, fragrant blooms, making them a popular choice for both cut flower arrangements and garden planting. Their beauty and relatively short natural blooming season mean that sourcing them requires knowing where and when to look. This guide navigates the various purchasing options available, whether you are seeking an immediate bouquet or a long-term addition to your landscape.
Purchasing Peonies as Cut Flowers
For those seeking an immediate floral arrangement, cut peonies can be found through several retail channels. Local florists typically provide the highest quality and most unique varieties, often sourcing directly from specialized growers. While this personalized service comes with a higher price point, the flowers are usually handled with greater care and arrive closer to the ideal “marshmallow” bud stage.
Grocery stores and supermarkets offer the most accessible and budget-friendly option for cut flowers. While convenient for impulse purchases, the selection is often limited to common varieties, and the freshness can be inconsistent. The longer supply chain for these flowers may reduce their ultimate vase life.
Online flower delivery services and wholesale distributors offer a middle ground, often facilitating the purchase of imported or greenhouse-grown blooms outside the typical season. These services provide a wide color range and are useful for events requiring large quantities. Quality can vary significantly, depending on the flower’s origin, which may include regions like Chile, New Zealand, or Holland to meet year-round demand.
Purchasing Peonies for Planting
Gardeners looking for a perennial plant have two main options: bare-root divisions and potted plants. Bare-root divisions, which are dormant root sections with “eyes” or growth buds, are the most common and economical way to buy a peony. They are typically shipped in the fall when the plant is dormant and ready for planting, offering the widest selection of cultivars.
Specialized nurseries and mail-order catalog companies are the premier sources for bare-root peonies, providing an extensive catalog of rare varieties. Purchasing from these specialty growers often ensures a larger, healthier root with multiple eyes, which leads to faster establishment. Local garden centers and big-box stores also sell bare roots, but their selection is usually limited to the most common types.
Potted peonies are live plants already growing in soil, primarily available in the spring, and offer instant gratification. While they are more expensive and offer a smaller variety selection than bare roots, they eliminate the need to wait for the root to sprout. They are a good option for gardeners who missed the fall planting window or prefer to see the plant’s foliage before committing.
Timing Your Purchase
The availability of peonies is dictated by their natural growing cycle, affecting both cut flowers and plants. The peak season for fresh, locally grown cut peonies in the Northern Hemisphere is a narrow window in late spring to early summer, typically late May through June. During this time, the highest quality and lowest prices are found.
To meet demand outside this brief natural window, the market relies on global sourcing, importing from countries in the Southern Hemisphere, such as Chile and New Zealand, where seasons are reversed. This allows for the purchase of cut flowers into the fall and winter. However, the price is significantly higher due to logistics, and the quality may be lower. Alaskan growers also extend the local US season, providing blooms from early July to September.
For planting, the optimal time to purchase and place bare roots in the ground is in the fall, specifically September to October, before a hard ground freeze. Planting during this dormancy period allows the root system to establish itself in the cooling soil temperatures over the winter. While potted plants can be planted in the spring, fall planting of a bare root generally gives the peony a better start for developing a strong root system.
Essential Buying Tips for Quality Selection
When choosing cut flowers, look for blooms that are still tightly closed but have reached the “marshmallow” bud stage. This means the bud is soft and slightly spongy to the touch, indicating it is mature enough to open fully once placed in a vase. Avoid buds that are rock-hard, as they may fail to open, or those that are already fully open, as their vase life will be short.
For bare-root purchases, quality is determined by the size and health of the root division. A good bare root should feel firm and not mushy, with at least three to five visible, reddish-pink “eyes,” which are the growth points for the following season’s stems. Proper planting depth is important; the eyes should be covered by no more than one to two inches of soil, as planting too deeply is the most common reason peonies fail to bloom.