Peony - buds not opening

My peonies have lots of buds and look very healthy - but the buds are not opening. This happened last year too. I haven't moved the plant ( it is at least several years old) and it used to flower beautifully. Any suggestions?

How much sun does it get? And did the buds not open at all last year? Another possibility is it might need fertilizer.

Mine are just starting to open now. If the buds look healthy (as opposed to dried out/brown), I would give it a little more time.

Mine are starting to open now. I have a ton of real buds this year, as opposed to last year when I only got about 2 flowers (out of 10 plants) and most of the buds I did get dried up rather than bloomed. We blamed the bad winter, but last winter was bad also, so I'm at a loss for an explanation. I'm so glad I get to have my last year with this garden before I move!

You also need ants crawling on the plants and blossoms. For some reason they are essential to healthy peonys.

Have you watered it regularly? It has been very dry. Mine just opened today, if that is any consolation? Every variety has a slightly different bloom schedule, and the very hard winter set back everything. If we don't get a soaking rain tonight, make sure you you drench it tomorrow. A good gardener needs patience above everything else

I have one cultivar that is through blooming already, one that is at its peak, and another that has yet to bloom.

Ants eat a wax that the peonies produce on the buds, which lets them open. If you don't have ants, you're out of luck!

Mine exploded open today! Peonies are my favorite flower. I use tomato cages to prop them up so that they don't wind up on the driveway.

Here's the first batch from my garden -- I'm so happy the fragrant ones bloomed (none did last year):

Ants are not necessary for the buds to open. http://mbgna.umich.edu/peony/ask-the-experts/why-are-there-ants-my-peonies.

Mine just started to open yesterday. The earth was very dry, so yesterday morning I gave them a good watering. Not sure if this had anything to do with it.

orzabelle said:
The earth was very dry, so yesterday morning I gave them a good watering. Not sure if this had anything to do with it.

My guess is that it had everything to do with it.

Watering deeply and regularly (when Mother Nature doesn't do it) is one thing a lot of folks seem to skimp on.

My third cultivar is only now beginning to open a bit. The first peaked a couple of weeks ago. The second is in its glory right now. They seem to have different timing.

gerryl said:
My third cultivar is only now beginning to open a bit. The first peaked a couple of weeks ago. The second is in its glory right now. They seem to have different timing.

I went through such a bother to order different cultivars, planting them "just so" -- and they all bloom at the same time. Go figure! LOL!

mums...I didn't know these would all bloom at different times. I just bought them because I liked them. Not sure I planted them at the same time. I never know what to expect with my gardening attempts!

gerryl said:
mums...I didn't know these would all bloom at different times. I just bought them because I liked them. Not sure I planted them at the same time. I never know what to expect with my gardening attempts!

I always buy mine at Scheepers and they list the bloom schedule for each kind. Frankly, although I'd love to extend the bloom time, they are just so beautiful and fragrant, I'm grateful that they bloom at all!

They are an exuberant flower. I have one that is intense pink with frilly edges. They make me happy.

"Exuberant" is the perfect word for peonies. I must remember to add them to my list of must-haves for our garden.

I'm beginning to think that peonies cause heavy rain. All it takes is for them to open fully and -- blammo -- here comes a torrential storm to knock them all down.

tom said:
I'm beginning to think that peonies cause heavy rain. All it takes is for them to open fully and -- blammo -- here comes a torrential storm to knock them all down.

Before the storm I cut about a dozen Peonies---but I left the ones that had buds on the same stalk. Today, I gently shook all the collapsed Peonies to get all the petals off, so the buds can see the sun. We'll see whether that works.

Oooh, great indea, calliope!

tom said:
I'm beginning to think that peonies cause heavy rain. All it takes is for them to open fully and -- blammo -- here comes a torrential storm to knock them all down.

Precisely. It happens every year. I did manage to cut some and enjoy them inside before they got mostly clobbered. One thing I don't like about peonies is that they get so heavy that even if you cage them, they tend to fall over and break their own necks. Also, within a couple of days of flowering, the petals just start falling out in huge clumps. They're a tricky flower for sure.

One interesting thing. I noticed that some of the late flower buds were white instead of pink. I thought that they'd still turn pink, but now they're opened and they're totally white. I found this explanation online:

Peonies self-seed, which means that in time, what you thought was a large single peony plant may be several plants. This is especially common with herbaceous perennials. The seeds do not usually produce plants that bloom with the same color as the mother plant. This means that if you planted a bush that produced pink flowers, it's possible that a few years down the road, those white flowers you think you're seeing on the pink bush are actually flowers on a new, white bush that grew from seed.

Here's one of the white peony flowers:

Pretty! Wonder if there'll be that red beauty mark in the very center when the bud comepletely opens - those are my favorites.

musicmz said:
Pretty! Wonder if there'll be that red beauty mark in the very center when the bud comepletely opens - those are my favorites.

Oh, I don't know, but I'll keep an eye out for it. The flower is qualitatively different from the pink flowers, not just in color, and I'm smitten by it.

There was a gizmo for holding up peonies that I always meant to try, but peonies didn't do well at our last NJ house. It is a ring with a grid of interwoven wires with about 1" openings for the stems to grow through. You put the ring on the ground as the stems are just beginning to grow, and as the plant grows, the stems pass through the openings and carry the ring upward with them. Then, you add the stakes to hold the whole thing up. Has anyone tried it?

I used one of those hoops for years but don't do so any more. One good rainfall and the rain-saturated flowers just drooped over the edge of the hoop on their trip to the ground.

Phooey. So much for that great idea.

joan_crystal said:
I used one of those hoops for years but don't do so any more. One good rainfall and the rain-saturated flowers just drooped over the edge of the hoop on their trip to the ground.

Same here. I just left them natural this year and they did pretty well on their own (actually, I cut the flowers and enjoy them inside, so that may be why).

Cone-shape tomato cages work well, when I remember to get them onto the plant before it gets too big.