My neighbor was wrong about moving peonies

Old man across the street kept telling me I had to move my peonies every 5 years or they stop blooming. I believed him for 3 years. Finally asked the master gardener at the county extension office in Grand Rapids. She laughed and said peonies can go 50 years in one spot if they're happy. Mine were just buried too deep. Dug them up, reset the crowns an inch below soil, and they exploded this spring. Has anyone else gotten bad gardening advice from a well-meaning neighbor?

3 comments

3 Comments

susansingh1mo ago

Oh for crying out loud, is this really the hill people want to die on? You dug up a perfectly happy plant and reset it and now it's blooming again, big deal. Most peonies will bloom just fine even if they're a little deep, you just have to be patient. I've had peonies in the same spot for 12 years and they bloom every single spring without me messing with them. Sometimes I wonder if people just need something to fuss over in their gardens.

west.casey1mo ago

Throw it back in the hole and see who's really the fussy one, @susansingh.

jakeb811mo ago

That first year I dug up a peony and replanted it three inches too deep I thought I'd killed it for sure. Ended up sitting on my back porch with a beer apologizing to the plant like it could hear me. Three years later it finally bloomed and I felt like a proud dad at a graduation. So I get the fuss but honestly I think half the time we're just trying to justify our own gardening mistakes.