Why Your Peonies Are Not Blooming

About This Episode

Reasons why your peonies are not blooming. Plus, Grumpy’s biggest pet peeve when shopping for plants.

Question Of The Week

"I moved to Georgia last summer and planted peonies. They came up without a single bloom. What gives?" - Cindy

Grumpy's Answer: Okay, your peonies didn't bloom. There's a couple reasons why:

1. Maybe they just need another year of growth. If that's the case, what you want to make sure is they're growing in full sun because they don't like half sun. They don't like shade. They won't bloom. They'll grow, but they won't have any bloom. So full sun for them.
2. I would also fertilize them now with a, slow release fertilizer, something like Espoma, Plant-tone, or Dynamite. And always follow the label directions especially with real dynamite.
3. Now one other thing you might yet need to make sure of is that when you're planting peonies in the South, that you plant a heat tolerant kind- that don't need long, cold winters to bloom well. And some of those are ones called Festiva Maxima, Sara Bernhardt, Kansas, and Scarlett O'Hara. And there's others too, but, if you remember some of those names you just need to have a type that will bloom well in a mild winter, and all of those will, reliably. And you can get them at garden centers. They're not hard to find.
   

Gripe Of The Week

When I go to a store and I'm looking for something in particular, it really bugs me when I search the whole store, I find just what I want, and there's no price tag on it. That sends me through the roof because if it doesn't have a price tag on it, it means I have to pick it up, and then I have to take it to the cash register. I have to ask, and usually, it ends up being about eight times more than I'm willing to pay. So then I get all embarrassed. So rather than do that, if it doesn't have a price, I just sit it right back down.

Now, I recently was on a website that's frequented by a lot of people who own and operate independent garden centers, and we have a lot of them around where I live, and I like to shop there. But I just had to make this point. I said, "It really bugs me when I go out looking for something particular in my garden store, and I go there and I see a whole table full of plants with no prices." So I said, "If you don't want to sell these plants, just leave the prices off." Well, I got some positive reviews and a lot of negative reviews. "Well, you just don't understand. We have all these hundreds of plants coming in every day. We have all these customers here. We just don't have time." And I said, "Now, hey, that's not my problem."

About Ask Grumpy

Ask Grumpy is a podcast featuring Steve Bender, also known as Southern Living’s Grumpy Gardener. For more than 30 years, Grumpy has been sharing advice on what to grow, when to plant, and how to manage just about anything in your garden. Tune in for short episodes every Wednesday and Saturday as Grumpy answers reader questions, solves seasonal conundrums, and provides need-to-know advice for gardeners with his very Grumpy sense of humor. Be sure to follow Ask Grumpy on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen so you don't miss an episode.

Editor’s Note: Please be mindful that this transcript does not go through our standard editorial process and may contain inaccuracies and grammatical errors.