Peony Care Tips

We have sad news…Peony season is ending! Peonies are the nations favourite flowers and we definitely know why: their strong beautiful scent, their variety of colours, and their large luxurious heads are guaranteed to always raise a smile. 

You can still shop our bouquets containing peonies by clicking here. But hurry, you won’t be able to for long! If those bouquets aren’t ‘the one’ for you, give either of our Florist shops a call, a Florist will arrange a bespoke bouquet for you, at the price you’d like. No matter where you are in the UK, this service is available to you. 

Telephone Marlow: 01628 477990

Telephone Bourne End: 01628 523200

To end peony season we thought it’d be great to share some of our Florist peony care tips with you. 

  1. The vase

The vase plays a big role in how long your flowers will last, but it often gets overlooked. Make sure your vase is extremely clean. Before putting any water or flower food in, clean your vase with washing up liquid and hot or boiling water. If it’s really dirty, it may need a little bit of bleach to clean it too. If there is any bacteria in the vase, that’ll transfer to the flower water, and in turn, kill your flowers. You can shop our flower vases by clicking here.

Here is one of our vases called: Vase ~ The Flower Shop Hand Tie Vase

2. The Water

Make sure the water you put in the vase in fresh, and tepid. This temperature makes it easy for the Flower Food to dissolve and is optimal temperate for your peonies to flourish. Fill vase with enough water so the stems are covered. When it comes to changing the water, it is best to do this every other day, or every day. A good way to judge is to change it as soon as the water looks a bit cloudy. Changing the water often avoids bacteria building up which can make flower stems go mouldy and kill the flowers.

Tepid water in my vase ready for my peonies

3. Cutting the stems

There are a few key tips in terms of cutting the stems, let talk through them. Before you put your peonies in water, you should always cut the stems. Making sure to do this with Florist scissors is extremely important. Cutting your stems with normal scissors crushes the outer circumference of the stem, which is the part of the stem that takes in water and nutrients. If that is crushed and damaged, the stems will not be able to take in the water they need, and your peonies will likely die early. If you don’t have florist scissors, opt to cut the stems with a sharp knife instead. When cutting the stems, cut them at a 45 degree angle. An easy way to do this is to place your scissors over the stem, as if you’re going to cut straight, and then tilt them diagonally so they’re 45 degrees, and cut. Look at our pictures for a guide. These florist scissors are available to buy at our Bourne End shop in Flower Land Garden Centre.

Cutting stems with florist scissors at a 45 degree angle

4. The leaves

The last step before you arrange your flowers in the vase, is to remove any lower leaves. Make sure you remove the leaves that would be touching the water. It is important no leaves are touching the water, as they can pollute the water with bacteria, therefore killing your flowers. You can remove the leaves by cutting at the base of their stem, or pulling them off by hand.

Pulling off any leaves that would reach the water

5. Now you’re ready to arrange your peonies however you like.

Peonies have luxurious large heads, and smell beautiful which makes them a perfect table centrepiece for a dinner party. We bet they’ll really wow your guests! Here is a picture of a pink peony and eucalyptus bouquet our Florist Holly created. If you’d like this, we can recreate it for you – call either of our shops to order to you, or to arrange a click & collect.

Our florist holding a pink peony and eucalyptus bouquet

Thank you for reading this blog post. We hope these tips from our experts help you!