Peony
Paeonia lactiflora
Planted for huge, lush, often fragrant flowers in late spring on a bushy perennial whose glossy leaves stay handsome through summer, and deer and rabbits leave it alone. Once settled it can live for decades. It needs winter chill, so it struggles in warm Southern gardens, and may take a year or two to bloom.
- Mature size
- 3 × 2.5 ft
- 0.9 × 0.8 m, tall × wide
- Hardiness
- Zones 5a–8a
- USDA
- Sun
- Full sun to part shade
- Water
- Medium
- Blooms
- May–Jun
Peony at its mature size
A mature Peony grows 34 to 36 inches tall and 2 to 3 feet wide.
Drawn to scale beside a 5 ft 9 in person. With VeraScape, you see it at this size in your own yard.
Typical mature size, unpruned. Sources: friendsschoolplantsale.com.
Through the year
What Peony looks like month by month in a typical zone 6–7 garden.
Below ground · Nov–Mar
Dies back to the ground.
In leaf · Apr, Jun–Sep
Bushy mound of glossy dark green divided leaves, no flowers.
In flower · May
Large double rose-pink flowers over the foliage.
Fall · Oct
Foliage turned yellow and reddish-purple, with a slight bronze cast; leaves still on the stems, not dead brown or collapsed.
Photos
Growing Peony
- Grows well in
- The Northeast, the Midwest, the Plains and Mountain West, and the Pacific Northwest.
- Growth rate
- Slow
- Good for
- Specimen, deer resistant, and fragrant
- Leaves
- Dies back in winter
- Native to
- Siberia, Northern China, and Mongolia
Spacing
VeraScape spaces plants so their grown canopies just touch. For Peony, that’s about 2.5 ft apart, center to center.
Place a row in your own yard and VeraScape spaces them at their mature width, so you can see whether they’ll crowd the walk.
See Peony in your yard before you dig
Visualize it at its true size, alongside the rest of your design.