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PEONIES, ANTS AND MORE Posted 3/19/02
I've always wondered about ants crawling around on my peony buds before they flower. Are the ants necessary, i.e., do they in some way help the flower buds mature? I planted a new peony in my garden, but no ants appeared on my single flower bud the first year, and it didn't open. During the next and subsequent years, there were plenty of ants and flowers.
Thanks for the question - it's a good one! Ants are attracted to the sweet resin exuded on the flower buds, but it's a long-standing, popular, even benevolent myth that they "tickle the buds" or "lick the sugar" to help the buds open. They would open regardless of the ants' presence (these are the same ants that would benevolently tickle the food at the average picnic). Newly planted peonies often have a single flower bud (or two or three) which sometimes fails to open because the stress of being divided for commercial production results in a rootstock much reduced from its natural state, with feeder roots and root tips far fewer (or non existent) than when the plant grew in the ground. Often, the natural ends of the roots are trimmed even further for commercial packing or potting if they haven already been chopped off by the mechanical harvesters in the field. The plant is essentially in make vegetative growth now, make roots later mode, and is coasting on stored food, which often is not enough to push open a rudimentary flower bud. During that first season, along with the ability to make vegetative growth (though at first out of proportion to the root mass), comes the push to rebuild the plant’s root system - from the smallest root hair on up. As the root system builds, the plant is more able to take up moisture as well as macro and micro nutrients essential to flower-building. Each year's performance is dramatically better than the last, and herbaceous peonies are known to remain in the same position, undisturbed, for over a century. It is important to note however, that established peonies can be heavy feeders, though this is somewhat contradicted in the “green pages” of the Klehm Song Sparrow perennial catalog. When in the same garden position, undivided, for so long, stems become crowded and weak and buds can blast or fail to open once again due to the plants' depletion of nutrients from the surrounding soil. They are especially needy of potassium (K), which is essential for stem strength and disease resistance (Botrytis on the buds and Septoria on the stems and leaves can be devastating in an overgrown planting), and nitrogen (N), which enhances flower size and quality (phosphorous (P) contributes to flower bud initiation as well, but mature peonies in their quest for sexual reproduction initiate flower buds even when nutrient deprived). In fall, after cleaning the old stems, or likewise in very early spring, top-dress (important for the centers) and side-dress established clumps with a well-balanced slow-release plant food for best year-to-year performance, and scratch gently into the soil. A good organic formula (home-made or packaged) would contain blood meal or well-rotted/commercially processed poultry or barnyard manure (nitrogen); rock potash, Jersey Greensand, or well-leached wood ashes (potassium); and bone meal (phosphorous). Not to put the wire hoop-makers out of business, because the flowers can be very heavy regardless, but you may even notice a reduced need for plant supports when the clumps are well-fed!
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Copyright © 2002-2009 Robert F. GabellaLast Updated 6/07/2009 |
