Paeonia 'SARAH BERNHARDT' common peony

This perennial peony has a name which often gets misspelled with so many h’s and r’s. It is a beautiful variety forming a robust bush, freely flowering from end June until July. The flower heads are extra large, composed of many rosy pink petals with ruffled, silvery margins. It is fragrant. The erect stems are usually strong enough to hold the flowers without a need for a support. Deciduous leaves are mid green, divided, and emerge burgundy red in early spring.

These peonies are great plants not only for perennial beds and borders, they also look very elegant combined with shrubs and trees to soften their woody structures. They are one of the easiest perennials to grow – just make sure you don’t put them too deep and you won’t have a trouble with them - they can take almost any kind of weather caprice and full neglect. Peonies are long-lived plants, there can be found some 100 years old specimens in royal gardens and arboretums.

Peonies need fertile, well-drained, preferably moist soil. If you want to be really nice to them water them freely on hot and dry days and feed them annually after they roll up foliage completely for profusion of flowers and healthy appearance. Still, this extra care is not required, once established they will grow without help. They don’t like transplanting. If you need to reduce the clump size, remove the unwanted part leaving the rest of the rhizomes in soil, untouched. Fully hardy to about -34°C (USDA zone 4).

Last update 14-01-2011