In most garden areas you can meet beautiful flowers - peonies. They are so popular because of their luxurious fragrant flowers. This is a real garden decoration in the spring-summer season. Caring for a herbaceous perennial plant is not complicated, but preparation of pions for winter should be given special attention, since this flower is very afraid of frost. Let's find out how you can save peonies in winter.
Pruning and hiding pions for the winter
In order for peonies to successfully winter, it is necessary to carry out special preparation of flowers for wintering. It should be remembered that the successful wintering of peonies directly depends on the place of their planting: flowers planted in different parts of the garden can differently survive the winter.
The peonies best planted during wintering are planted near trees, bushes or along fences. On a high, purged stretch of winter, the snow is badly delayed. Therefore, for pions planted in such places, it is necessary to make an additional shelter for the winter. To do this, each peony bush is mulched, from above is covered, for example, in an inverted box, which is then covered with billet.
Peonies, planted in low places, suffer from stagnation of cold, moist air. Therefore, their tubers must be insulated with a thicker layer of different materials. It can be lutrasil, agril, or ordinary burlap. On top of such warming, the branches of the tartar, connected together in the form of a hut, are put up.
Is peonies cut for the winter?
Many flower growers are interested in when it is necessary to cut peonies for the winter. The correct timing of pruning peonies is very important for lush and plentiful flowering for the next year. However, the time of pruning depends on the region in which you live: in cold areas, frosts can occur at the end of September, and in southern and in December it's still warm. Therefore, on average, pruning pions should be in October-November, with the onset of frosts. By this time, the root system is already completely ready for pions in winter, and the tubers have accumulated enough nutrients for a successful wintering.
When pruning, it is necessary to cut off the entire aboveground part of the plant, leaving the growth buds and the remains of the stems about 2-4 cm high. Since the stems of peonies to the spring will rot, all the cut off remains of them are better burned or removed from the site so that possible infections and mold do not pass in the spring to healthy plants.
Peon care for the winter
After cutting, the peonies must be covered with humus or dry peat with a layer of at least 10 cm. For northern regions, this layer should be increased to 20 cm. Such a cover promotes the fact that the peonies wake up early in the spring before other, unguarded plants, and will be more abundant blossom. In addition, those nutrients that are contained in the mulch, entering the soil, are an excellent growth stimulator and fertilizer for pions, especially old bushes.
It is not recommended to cover peonies with cut stems, fallen leaves, manure or straw. In such residues there may be spores of fungi that cause various fungal diseases of pions. In addition, in such organic residues,
In the early spring, as soon as the ground dries a little and puffy bushes can be approached, shelters are removed from them, and mulch is raked in the aisles, leaving a small layer to preserve moisture and protect against early weeds.
As you can see, to cover peonies for the winter is not at all difficult, but such care will be repaid in a hundredfold in the form of beautiful fragrant flowers in your garden.