Hi! I bought these ?roots belonging to peonies. However, as their shapes are so weird, I am not sure which way to plant them up or down! Attached is a picture showing them positioned at the 12 o'clock, 1pm,, 3pm, 4 to 7 pm, 8 to 10pm, and 11pm positions. Would you please advise whether I have them positioned the right way up starting with the 12 o'clock position. Thanks.
On the roots that show little white growths, those are the developing above-ground stems - those need to be positioned upwards.
On the roots that look like bunches of fingers, the point at which all the tubers ("fingers") are connected needs to be upright.
You need to plant them so that the growing tips are barely covered by soil.. aim for about 1/2 inch of soil cover. If they are planted too deeply, the plants will produce leaf stems but won't flower. As it is, it may take a couple or even a few years for these to get strong enough to flower again.
This message was edited May 15, 2015 12:22 PM
Altagardener,
Wish I had seen this yesterday! I had 6 peonies to plant, and had the same question. Generally I know the "sprouts"/eyes go up, and so I tried to position so none of the eyes was deeper than an inch...However, that lead to some "at an angle" planting, vs. planting the what-look-like-tree branches/roots vs. straight down.
Do you think I should dig them up and replant? My I tried to plant straight up and down as much as possible vs.lying it down (horizontal) but they might not be straight. All had eyes/growth of about an inch.
Thanks in advance for any help!
I'm sure you did just fine, valal. There is little need for any absolute precision in most gardening things (despite the impression one might get from a lot of advice in sites like this!)... just getting the growing points upwards and with only a thin soil cover will be fine.
