The joy of growing Peonies

No one forgets their first bunch of peonies. The magic of watching those large promising flower buds slowly open to display their full glory is truly one of the wonders of spring.

] by Myles White ]

Kinross Fields

Valued for their beauty and medicinal properties people have prized peonies for thousands of years. The Ancient Greeks had a legend about the peony. Paeon, who was a student of Asclepius the Greek god of medicine, out shone him when he used the juice from the peony tuber to cure Pluto. Asclepius flew into a jealous rage and told the other gods that he planned to kill Paeon. Zeus thought this was unfair and so to protect Paeon hid him in the form of the peony flower for eternity.

In Chinese culture the peony is celebrated for its beauty, symbolising femininity, love, affection, good fortune and prosperity. It was for many centuries the symbol of the imperial court and was China’s national flower till the cultural revolution in 1912. In many Chinese homes when enter you will see flowers or paintings of peonies.

New Zealand whilst fairly new to growing peonies commercially for cut flower production has, through attention to quality, gained a reputation for producing first class flowers. It has something to do with our soils and climate which help to create outstanding colours especially for the coral varieties. As I mentioned a focus on quality has gained growers premium prices internationally. The flowers picked as buds are carefully graded, packed and kept between 0 and 2 degrees until reaching their end destination.

NZ exports peonies all over the world with flowers going to the likes of the Middle East, China, Europe and America. America is half of our export market but China is quickly growing with huge potential.

The peony tuber looks a bit like a bunch of mangled carrots. It’s from the tuber that the medicinal properties are obtained. But tea is also made from steeping the flowers leaves with beneficial effects. There is a NZ company producing a wonderful skin product from the tubers based in Nelson. The medicinal potential of peonies is extensive.

Peonies are a very hardy plant. They are drought resistant and are generally easy to grow. There are only two things that they need to survive and that is free draining soil and winter chilling. They must get a series of frosts to regenerate for the following year. This is why they don’t grow well in the North Island much to the disappointment of Aucklanders (by far NZ’s largest domestic