When (and How) to Harvest and Store Your Peony Blooms
My best tips for making your Peony blooms last as long as possible!
There is NOTHING better than vases of gorgeous, lush Peonies covering every flat surface of your home. Peony season is short and sweet… and if you’re like me, you want to make it last as long as possible!
Today, I’m going to share my best tips for harvesting (and storing) your Peony blooms to squeeze every last bit of joy out of Peony season.
With 450 Peony plants on our farm, Peony season is a delight!
The #1 mistake I see new growers make
The best time to harvest a Peony is before it opens. I know that sounds odd, but trust me on this one.
I often see people wait until the bloom is fully open, with all the petals extended back, before they harvest the blooms.
Friend, I understand. You want to see what it looks like before you harvest it. But if you want your Peonies to last as long as possible in the vase, it’s best to harvest them right before the petals unfurl.
When you harvest at the correct stage and let the bloom open in a vase, you can expect 7-10 days of vase life.
If you wait until the bloom is already open in the garden? You're looking at 3-5 days. That's a significant difference!
There are two more reasons to harvest early:
🐜Ants. Peony buds produce a sweet, sticky sap that ants absolutely love. They're not harming your plant, but if you harvest wide-open blooms, you’re probably going to find a bunch of ants crawling around in them. Harvesting before the bloom opens makes it much easier to get rid of them. Simply hold the stem upside down and smack it against your leg. The ants will fall off (and the bloom won’t be damaged, because it’s not open yet). Or you can swish the stem in a bucket of water to rinse the ants off.
❄️Storage. Ok, this part feels like pure magic. Peony buds harvested before they are open can be stored dry (no water needed) in a cool space, like a cooler or your fridge veggie crisper drawer for up to four weeks (or even longer!). That means if you have a wedding, a party, or any special event on the calendar, you can harvest your Peonies when they are ready… and hold them until you need them. This is an absolute GAMECHANGER.
“Dr. Alexander Fleming” Peony at the correct stage of harvest.
“Dr. Alexander Fleming” Peony at open stage. When harvested at this stage, the vase life will be much shorter… and the bloom will likely be full of ants. 🙃🐜
The Soft Marshmallow Test
So, how do you know when a bud is ready to cut? You squeeze it.
I'm serious. Give the bud a gentle squeeze. What you're looking for is what I call the Soft Marshmallow Stage: the bud is still fully closed, but it yields slightly under your fingers… soft and a little squishy.
Watch the video below to see what I’m talking about!
If the bud feels hard and firm (like a marble), it's not ready yet. Come back later and check again.
Peonies, like fruit, ripen faster in hot weather. On warm days (80°F and above), we walk through the Peony field 2-3x per day, squeezing buds to check for ripeness. A few hours can make a huge difference. Buds that were not ready at breakfast time might be ripe by lunch time!
Pro tip: As a general rule, red/magenta Peonies take longer to reach the Soft Marshmallow Stage than pink or white varieties. If your reds still feel firm while your pinks are ready to go, that's normal. Just keep checking them every day.
How to Store Your Peonies to Use Later
Once you've cut your stems at the right stage, here's how to keep them fresh until you need them.
✅For short-term storage (1-2 weeks), wrap the stems loosely in newprint or paper, then place them in a plastic bag, but don’t seal it. Keep them dry (no water) in the refrigerator at 40-42°F.
✅For longer storage (up to 4 weeks), follow the instructions above, but aim for a colder temp of 32-36°F if you have that option. The colder you can keep them, the longer they will last.
When you're ready to use them, pull the stems out of the fridge about 8 hours ahead of time.
They might look a little sad, but don’t panic. Give each stem a fresh cut at the bottom of the stem (so it can start drinking water) and place them in a vase of clean water to rehydrate.
It’s so magical watching them open up and bloom! You truly have to see it to believe it.
Vase life for Peonies will vary, depending on when they were cut and how they were stored.
Fresh from the field, at the correct stage of harvest: 7-10 days
Stored for 1-2 weeks in a fridge: 3-6 days
Stored for 4+ weeks in a cooler at 32-36°: 1-4 days
As you can see, the longer they are stored, the shorter the vase life. But that’s ok… because most of the stored Peonies are intended for weddings or events, where they only need to look good for one day. We call these “Event Flowers”.
“Sarah Bernhardt” Peonies, ready to be wrapped in paper and stored in the cooler for a few weeks!
Harvesting and storing Peonies is one of those skills that feels a little mysterious at first, but once you see how it works for yourself, you’ll be a believer!
Trust the process, trust the squeeze test, and you'll be rewarded with armloads of blooms that exceed your expectations
Now go enjoy those Peonies! You've earned it!
How to Plan a Cutting Garden Layout (Without Overthinking It)
You've been dreaming about it for years. Rows of beautiful blooms, armloads of Cosmos and Zinnias, mason jars overflowing with cheery Sunflowers on every surface of your house.
So why haven’t you planted your garden yet?
Let me guess.
Every time you sit down to plan it, you end up in a rabbit hole of Pinterest boards, YouTube videos, and dreamy Instagram reels… and three hours later you're more confused than when you started.
Sound familiar? I’ve done it too, friend!
Here's the good news: Your cutting garden does NOT need to be fancy or Instagram perfect. In fact, planning a cutting garden layout can be simple when you have some guidelines.
And in this post, I'm going to give you some of my best suggestions for getting your garden planted THIS year, not “someday”.
Let's do this!
The One Thing Your Cutting Garden Can't Live Without: 6 Hours of Sun
Let’s start with the most important thing. Before we talk about rows, pathways, and any of the fun stuff, we have to talk about the sun.
Your cutting garden needs a minimum of 6 hours of direct sunlight per day. Full sun is even better. This is truly a non-negotiable when it comes to cut flowers.
Too shady? You'll get leggy, floppy plants with few blooms. [Insert sad trombone noise]
Everything else in this post is a suggestion… but adequate sunlight is not.
So before you do anything else, walk your property and find your sunniest spot.
You might have to get creative. I know plenty of dedicated growers who only get sun in their driveway, so they build garden beds in their driveway! Others may need to ask a friend, family member, or neighbor if they can use part of their yard. Or maybe you rent a plot at a community garden. There are endless options!
Full sun = happy cut flowers
How Big Should My Garden Be?
Great question.
I always recommend starting small and expanding the following year, if you feel ready.
Why? I see lots of people with ambitious plans in the spring… but by early summer, they are drowning in weeds and give up on their dream garden.
You can grow a ridiculous amount of flowers in a small space. Start with a few rows/beds that are roughly 3ft x 12ft and see how it works for you.
I’d rather you have a beautiful, enjoyable, and manageable space than burn yourself out in less than 2 months.
Which Direction Should Your Cutting Garden Rows Run?
Okay, I get this question all the time.
Should my rows run north to south? East to west? Does it even matter?
Here's my answer: it doesn't really matter.
I know, I know. You were expecting a definitive answer… but there isn’t one. Every grower is working with a different space and has to figure out what works best for them.
One thing you can consider is how much wind your plants will be exposed to.
For example, our fields are very windy, and the wind usually comes from the west, so we plant our rows east to west, so the wind can blow along the rows, instead of blowing the rows over.
But in the end, the direction of your rows is far less important than simply getting them in the ground. Work with the shape of your space, and don't let this one detail hold you back.
How Wide Should Cutting Garden Rows Be?
Three feet. That's our magic number.
Three-foot-wide rows are the sweet spot for a cutting garden. This width is wide enough to fit a LOT of plants in a small space, while also narrow enough that you can reach the center from either side without throwing out your back (please trust me on this one. I grow flowers for a living, and it’s important to have good posture and body mechanics when you’re harvesting to prevent injuries!).
If you're working with raised beds, aim for the same. 3 feet across is the ideal working width for most gardeners.
Don't Skip the Pathways in Your Cut Flower Garden
When you’re short on space, it can be tempting to skimp on pathway space.
I’ve made this mistake before. I wanted to dedicate as much space to flowers as possible and figured I could “cheat” with an 18” wide pathway.
Disaster.
By mid-summer, it was impossible to navigate the pathways without damaging the plants and blooms. There was no room to move, weeding was a nightmare, and every time I bent over to harvest flowers, I ended up knocking over plants in the row behind me... with my butt. How embarrassing. Ha!
Your cutting garden pathways should also be 3 feet wide. Yes, 3 full feet. And no, that's not wasted space.
Listen, you're going to be out in that garden a lot. Harvesting, weeding, watering, and admiring your hard work. You need room to move around comfortably with a harvest bucket in one hand and your clippers in the other. A 3-foot-wide pathway also accommodates most wheelbarrows or garden carts.
Wide pathways = a garden you actually enjoy working in.
3 ft wide beds and 3 foot wide pathways at planting time on May 15…
…the same area, just 2 months later! You can see why the 3 ft wide pathways are necessary.
How to Organize Your Cutting Garden: Tall Plants Go North
Here's one of my favorite cutting garden layout tips. You better believe I learned this one the hard way. Ha!
Always plant your tallest flowers on the north end of your garden.
Why? Because tall plants shade out shorter ones. If you plant your 6-foot sunflowers on the south end of your garden, the shorter plants behind them don't stand a chance. Remember that rule about 6 hours of direct sunlight?
By placing tall flowers on the north end of the bed, you allow the sun to reach all your plants evenly throughout the day. Everybody wins.
Amaranth gets HUGE so it always goes in the north end of the planting space so it’s doesn’t shade out the other flowers!
Cut Flower Spacing Guide: One Number to Rule Them All
When I started growing cut flowers, I stressed over plant spacing. I wanted to make sure I was doing it “right” and obsessively studied the seed packs.
I ended up doing way too much complicated math and planning.
After over a decade of trying multiple spacings, it turns out the vast majority of cut flower annuals thrive at 9-inch spacing.
We plant 90% of our annuals at this spacing, and it makes planning so much easier. Zinnias, Snapdragon, Celosia, Statice, Ageratum, Scabiosa, Strawflower, China Aster… all at 9 inches.
The few exceptions?
-We still plant Cosmos at 12 inches.
-Dahlias can be planted from 12 to 18 inches, depending on the variety (size can vary a lot!).
-Single-stem Sunflowers thrive at 6-inch spacing, while branching Sunflowers need 12-18 inches.
Isn't that refreshing? One number to remember, and most of your garden is covered.
NOTE: When you are planting flowers for a cutting garden, the suggested spacing on the seed pack is just that - a suggestion. I almost always recommend planting them closer than suggested, since this encourages the flowers to grow taller and straighter.
Succession Planting for Beginners: How to Have Blooms All Season Long
Have you ever had a garden that was absolutely gorgeous for two weeks… and then it fizzled out?
That's what happens without succession planting.
Succession planting simply means staggering your plantings so that new flowers are always coming into bloom. Instead of planting everything at once and having a big flush of color followed by a whole lot of nothing, you plant in intervals (every 2-3 weeks) so the harvest keeps coming.
It doesn't have to be complicated. For beginners, I recommend planting 2-3 successions, spaced about 2-3 weeks apart.
This is what it looks like in practice: You plant half of your seedlings and seeds on a certain date. Then, 2-3 weeks later, you plant the rest of your garden.
This will ensure you have months of blooms, instead of just a few weeks.
You can learn more about Succession Planting and how I do it HERE.
Sketch Out Your Cutting Garden Layout (Even Badly)
Okay, I know some of you are already breaking out the graph paper. (Hello, fellow nerds.🤓 I see you. You are my people)
And some of you are thinking, "I’m just gonna wing it and plant some stuff."
Hold up. I love your enthusiasm, but we do need a plan.
It doesn't have to be fancy. A rough sketch on the back of a grocery list is fine. The point is to get your ideas out of your head and onto paper so you can actually see what you're working with before you start digging.
Map out your rows, your pathways, your tall plants on the north end, and roughly where each flower variety will go.
This is not an art project, and you’re not being graded. Even a bad plan is better than no plan at all.
And guess what? You probably won’t stick to your plan, but that’s ok.
The process of planning is what’s important. The process helps you figure out where things could go awry ahead of time.
An example of one of my rough sketches, complete with misspelled words, dirt and coffee stains. Ha!
The Best Cutting Garden Layout Is the One You Actually Plant
Here's my final piece of advice, and probably the most important: Done is better than perfect.
The best cutting garden layout isn't the one with the most precise measurements or the most elaborate plan. It's the one that gets planted and enjoyed.
On our farm, our favorite phrase is “Next year is going to be great!” 🤣
You’ll never, ever have a perfect garden. You’ll always make changes and improvements.
You’re going to mess up. You’re going to have failures.
That’s all ok! Because next year’s garden is going to be great, right?
Now stop overthinking it and go plant something! 🌸
-Lori
Ready to go deeper? My online course, Backyard Cutting Garden 101, covers everything you need to plan, grow, harvest, and arrange your dream cutting garden. Click below for all the details!
Hardy Annuals vs. Heat-Loving Annuals: How to Have Blooms All Season Long
If you've ever planted a packet of flower seeds, waited patiently, and then watched them struggle to grow… there's a good chance you planted the wrong flower at the wrong time.
Don't worry. It happens to everyone!
But once you understand the difference between flower types, everything will click into place.
Not all Annual cut flowers are created the same!
Some annuals love the cold. ❄️
Some love the heat. 🔥
If you plant them at the wrong time, they will STRUGGLE.
If you plant them at the right time, they will THRIVE.
In this blog post, I’ll teach you about the 2 types of Annual cut flowers we grow on our farm and how we treat them very differently.
❄️Hardy Annuals: The Cool-Weather Lovers
Hardy Annuals are the early bloomers of the flower world.
They're frost-tolerant, cold-loving plants that require cool conditions to thrive. This group includes flowers such as:
Ammi / Dara
Bachelor Buttons
Bells of Ireland
Chinese Forget-Me-Not
Corncockle (Agrostemma)
Larkspur
Nigella (Love-in-a-Mist)
Orlaya
Pennycress
Sweet Sultan
These flowers bloom in late spring and early summer, which typically is June here in Michigan (summer officially begins on June 21ish). Hardy Annuals are great because they help to fill the “Awkward Gap Season”, the time of year between spring bulbs (Tulips, Daffodils, etc) and the heat-loving summer annuals (Sunflowers, Zinnias, Celosia, etc).
But here’s the catch with Hardy Annuals: they have to be planted EARLY. Waaay earlier than you’d think! Depending on where you live and your climate, Hardy Annuals should be planted in the fall, winter, or very early spring (March and April).
The general rule of thumb is that Hardy Annuals should be planted 4-8 weeks before your average last spring frost.
Example: My average last spring frost is May 15. I need to plant Hardy Annuals between March 15 and April 15.
Yup, the weather is likely going to be cold. You might still be getting snow, sleet, and everything in between (the kind of weather that makes it miserable to be outside!). That’s ok. Hardy Annuals adore cold, wet weather.
If you wait until the weather is warm and pleasant to plant them? You've already missed the window. So sad! Trust me. You’ve got to get out there when it’s cold, wet and muddy. Miserable for you, but perfect conditions for them!
By the time summer heat rolls in, Hardy Annuals are declining. They are NOT heat-tolerant, and they will start dying when it gets too hot (if I were a flower type, I’d 100% be Hardy Annual. I also wilt and feel like I’m dying in hot weather. Ha!).
Most Hardy Annuals are done blooming and going to seed by mid-July.
If you've had bad luck with Hardy Annuals in the past, you likely planted them too late.
[Want to learn my favorite method for planting Hardy Annuals? Read all about the S.T.U.N. Method here]
🔥Heat-Loving Annuals: The Summer Stars
On the flip side, we have the Tender Annuals, or as I like to call them, the Heat-Loving Annuals.
These plants cannot tolerate frost, and they won't really get going until the weather warms up.
There is no point in trying to plant these Heat-Loving Annuals earlier. They will sulk and pout in cooler weather. They want HOT weather, not cool spring weather.
We plant them after our average last spring frost (around May 15 here in Michigan, with many people aiming for Memorial Day weekend), but I find the seedlings that I plant in June and July (when it’s HOT!🔥) grow even better and faster than the ones planted in May.
Here are some Tender Annuals that thrive in the heat of summer:
These flowers begin blooming in midsummer (July) and keep going strong right through September. They're your workhorse summer bouquet flowers.
“Flipping beds”, a.k.a. Using every square inch of your planting area
Now that you know about the difference between Hardy Annuals and Heat-Loving Annuals, let me share a great tip.
On our farm, every square inch matters. So instead of letting our Hardy Annual beds sit there taking up space after they start to decline in July, we flip the beds.
“Flipping beds” means removing one crop and replacing it with another crop, to ensure that the growing bed is as productive as possible.
In mid-July, we rip out or cut back the Hardy Annuals and immediately plant trays* of heat-loving Annual transplants into those same beds (if your growing season is long enough, you could even simply direct sow crops like Cosmos, Sunflowers, and Zinnias!).
The Hardy Annuals give us beautiful blooms from June through early July.
The Tender Annuals bloom August through October (until our first fall frost).
This is the beauty of growing Hardy Annuals AND Heat-Loving Annuals. You can grow them in the same location, since they bloom at different times.
*This method DOES require planning ahead. We know we’ll want to plant Heat-Loving Annual seedlings around July 15, so we count backwards about 4-6 weeks and make a note on the calendar to start seeds around early June so we’ll have transplants ready to go.
Timing Is Everything: A Simple Rule of Thumb
Timing is SO IMPORTANT.
These plants are easy to grow IF they are planted at the correct time of year.
❄️Hardy Annuals → Plant 4-8 weeks before your average last spring frost. For many of us, this means late winter or early spring.
🔥Heat-Loving Annuals → Plant after your average last spring frost, once the threat of frost has passed. The warmer the weather, the faster and better they will grow.
If you plant Hardy Annuals too late, they won’t thrive.
If you plant Heat-Loving Annuals too early, they won’t thrive.
Plant the right flowers, in the right season, at the right time?
Success!
Tips for Beginners
Tip #1
If you’re an absolute beginner, I recommend starting with Heat-Loving Annuals. These plants are so easy to grow.
Once you feel more confident, you can explore the world of Hardy Annual flowers. These plants are also easy to grow, but getting the timing right is trickier.
Most people have a really hard time wrapping their heads around planting so early in the season! They are worried that they are going to kill the Hardy Annuals by planting them too early… when in reality, the thing that kills them is planting too late.
It can be very difficult to trust the process!
Tip #2
Many Hardy Annuals prefer to be direct sown right into the garden. In fact, some of them perform very poorly when transplanted.
I highly recommend direct sowing:
Larkspur
Nigella (Love-in-a-Mist)
Orlaya
Pennycress
Peppergrass
Tip #3
Plants germinate and grow faster when planted around the Summer Solstice. June 21ish is the longest day of the year, with the most available sunlight.
When I direct-sow Zinnia seeds on May 15, it takes about 75 days for the plants to germinate, grow, and bloom.
When I sow Zinnia seeds around the Summer Solstice, they germinate, grow, and bloom in about 45 days!
Take advantage of those long days and don’t be afraid to sow/plant later than you think you can!
Ready to plant?
Check out a selection of our favorite, top performing cut flower seeds.
Tears in the Garden
A Good Friday meditation about the garden.
*I wrote this essay over a decade ago. Praying and planting seeds has become part of my Good Friday ritual since that time. I highly recommend getting out in your garden if possible. God has so many powerful revelations to teach us through His creation.
Here in Michigan, when I plant peas on Good Friday, they ripen right around the Summer Solstice, the first day of Summer. Remembering the sorrow of the planting day makes the sweetness of the peas on a summer day that much more precious.
Easter Sunday is coming, friends.
But first, we have to live through Good Friday.
The older I become, the more emotional I am on Good Friday. The older I become, the more overwhelmed I am by the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus. The older I become, the more significance I find in simple things. Like gardening.
Today I went out to the garden to plant the first seeds of the season and talk to God. (We have our best conversations in the garden.) After a bitter, cold spring, the ground finally thawed enough to plant peas. It seemed fitting — a good day to bury seeds that look dead and dormant, but will soon burst forth with new life.
![20170413_083434_HDR[1].jpg](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/582b872529687fd6acb7423d/1492088605762-4U83ZNMFLC5FH5DQUOPU/20170413_083434_HDR%5B1%5D.jpg)
The garden beds were ready and waiting, prepared last fall. After a bit of raking to smooth the soil, I dug shallow furrows and began to place the seeds one by one.
And that's when I found myself with tears streaming down my face, drenching the soil near my hands.
I'm not entirely sure I can explain it.
Maybe it was the cold air, or the quiet, or just the weight of the day.
But kneeling there in the dirt, something in me cracked open.
All the hard and heavy things I'd been carrying… the ways I'd fallen short, the grief I'd been holding, the places in my life that felt broken beyond repair… I laid them down in that furrow, right alongside the seeds.
And then I covered them up.
With each swipe of my hand, the seeds disappeared beneath the soil. And I thought about how that is exactly what Jesus came to do. To take what is broken and heavy and hand it back to us made new.
This ugly, wrinkled, insignificant, dead-looking seed will grow. It will push up through the dark soil and become something strong and alive. It will produce food that nourishes and sustains. Beauty from ashes.
Jesus takes what looks ruined… the broken places, the hard seasons, the parts of our lives that feel beyond saving… and He transforms them into something whole. Something that can bring hope and healing to others.
I left that garden lighter than I arrived. Ready to grow.
Transformation in the garden isn't just for plants. It's for people, too.
Today I shared tears in the garden with my Savior. But Sunday is coming, friends. Today we sit with the sorrow… and in two days, everything changes.
I hope you'll join me.
The S.T.U.N. Growing Method for Hardy Annuals
The growing method that lets nature do the heavy lifting.
Have you ever heard of the "S.T.U.N." growing method?
It's my favorite method ever!
I was first introduced to this method in the book Restoration Agriculture by Mark Shepherd.
Mark highly recommends this approach for a variety of crops, and once you understand what it stands for, you'll see why it's perfect for overwhelmed flower growers:
S - Sheer
T - Total
U - Utter
N - Neglect
Yes, that's right, folks, there are some plants out there that actually THRIVE on neglect!
In fact, I've discovered that the harder you try to grow them (pamper them, fuss over them), the worse they do!
The Flowers That Love to Be Ignored
Over the years, I've discovered that many Hardy Annual cut flowers absolutely love the "S.T.U.N." growing method. These include (but are not limited to):
Agrostemma (Corn Cockle)
Ammi/Dara
Bachelor Buttons
Bells of Ireland
Chinese Forget-Me-Not
Larkspur
Nigella (Love-in-a-Mist)
Orlaya
Pennycress
Saponaria (Soapwort)
Sweet Sultan
What Makes Hardy Annuals Different?
Hardy Annuals are frost/freeze-tolerant, and they actually perform BEST when sown and grown in cool weather.
Most of them also don't like to be transplanted, so direct sowing them where you want them to grow often works better than transplants. (My transplanted Hardy Annuals are ALWAYS shorter and less productive than the direct-sown plants. Every. Single. Time.)
How to Embrace the S.T.U.N. Method
My best advice for growing Hardy Annuals?
Embrace the "S.T.U.N." growing method and mimic how they grow in nature.
Instead of trying to fuss over them in trays indoors, go outside and sow the seeds either in the fall, winter, or early spring.
Last year, I direct sowed all my Hardy Annuals in February, when we had a thaw. I literally sprinkled the seeds where I wanted them to grow.
After sowing them in February, I did absolutely nothing to care for them. I just let nature do the work. The seeds were rained on, snowed on, sleeted on… and when the time was right, they germinated and grew.
In June, I had rows and rows of beautiful blooms to harvest… all because of the "S.T.U.N" growing method.
Your Turn
Give it a try and I think you'll see why I love it so much!
Sometimes the best thing we can do for our gardens (and ourselves) is to step back and let nature handle it.*
*Revolutionary concept, I know.