Lord of the (Peony) Rings

 As part of our continuing reality series, ‘Neal Knows More than Martha’, we are soliciting questions from readers who need to know more about how to garden.  Today’s question comes from reader Lew Faircloth of Whatchamacallit, ME.

Hi, Neal. When is the best time to install rings around your peonies? Lew Faircloth

Peonies are genetically bred to flop

Hello, Lew. The best time to install peony rings is right after you’ve been declared incompetent and strapped into a strait jacket. Failing that, install peony rings immediately before an errant falling Chinese rocket is about to hit your town. In short, there is never a good time to install peony rings, because these devices’ lone purpose is to demonstrate there are certain tasks that are beyond the grasp of mortal man.

The basic problem with peonies is that, like bumblebees, they are aerodynamical impossibilities that nevertheless exist. Think about a flower that, when fully open, is the size of a Mamie Eisenhower corsage. Now, place it on a stem designed to hold the weight of a helium-filled balloon. Next, make that stem grow to the height of a Celtics point guard. Finally, put several dozens of these flowers on a plant with a base that may be as tiny as the waist of a ballerina, or as big around as Donald Trump.

We install peony rings because peony stems have a tendency to break over under four conditions:

1.      Excess wind

2.      Heavy rain

3.      Light, southerly breezes

4.      Morning dew

No matter how carefully
they are stowed, peony rings
get tangled

I can state these facts with certainty because, just this past weekend, I attempted to place rings around the peonies in my own garden. It took three hours and the result looks like something a three-year-old with Attention Deficit Disorder would have constructed.

You approach the task of installing a peony ring with trepidation because there are two types of peony rings – single height and double height – available to fit roughly 85 combinations of peony plant sizes. Because single-ring holders have a stake height of roughly 18 inches, but must be driven six-plus inches into the ground to be stable, the height of the ring will be barely a foot above the ground.  Double-height peony rings are 36 inches high, but have a hoop diameter of about 14 inches. There are no peony plants in existence that fit either of these configurations.

Getting your peony rings out of your garage or basement is also an exercise in futility. No matter how carefully you stored them away last year, all peony hoops will have interlocked with their neighbors, and you will spend the better part of an hour disassembling and re-assembling enough hoops and staves to complete your task. Amazingly, even as they lie in your driveway, some hoops will again manage to intermingle. For inanimate objects, they’re awfully frisky.

This svelte peony
required a single hoop

The first peony I tackled was of the slim-waisted variety. I selected a single height ring with a 12-inch diameter, and pushed the first of the three staves into the ground. It went in about an inch before hitting a rock.  So, I moved the stave a few inches and found it would go in two inches and then promptly bend. No matter where I moved the stave, I found two-inches-and-bed to be the limit of the system design. So, I got out a handy piece of steel rebar and, in ten seconds, pounded it six inches into the soil. I then spent the next five minutes trying to remove the rebar, which had determined this was where it wanted to spend eternity. I settled on a system of driving down and removing the rebar an inch at a time.

Elapsed time to install the first peony ring: 45 minutes.

This Trumpian peony required a double-
height ring and two joined hoops

The second peony was of the Donald Trump variety. For this one, I determined I would use a double-height ring and join two, 12-inch hoops together. I installed five staves in about ten minutes. Now, all I had to do was thread the conjoined hoops through the eye-of-a-needle size loops without damaging peony stalks or leaves. Twenty minutes later – and with the assistance of a pair of needle-nosed pliers – I had a passable construction. Excerpt I had missed one stave. The correction took an additional twenty minutes and allowed me to plumb the depths of my bad-words vocabulary to express my frustration.

With a steep learning curve behind me, I completed three more peonies in about 45 minutes.

All of this, of course, will be for naught. The peonies are well-enclosed for the present, but those stems will continue to grow. A peony at our former home produced a stalk four feet long topped with a softball-size bloom. No peony ring in existence could safely encase such a beast. I secured it with two six-foot stakes and it still flopped. I already know my recent efforts will be insufficient.

Alas, the Chinese rocket has fallen into the Indian Ocean. Your best hope, Lew, is for an errant meteor.

Good luck,

Neal Sanders, The Principal Undergardener.