{"id":6540,"date":"2012-03-14T03:15:24","date_gmt":"2012-03-14T10:15:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/?p=6540"},"modified":"2013-01-10T09:48:03","modified_gmt":"2013-01-10T16:48:03","slug":"mulch-around-red-shoots-of-spring-peony","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/flowers\/mulch-around-red-shoots-of-spring-peony\/","title":{"rendered":"Mulch around Red Shoots of Spring Peony"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/hortoris\/4406935652\/\" title=\"Peony Shoots\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2615\/4406935652_f325b1d777.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"384\" alt=\"Peonie\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>A four foot square clump of plump new peony shoots were highlighted at Kew Gardens by the grey, gravel mulch around them. I have not suffered from slugs on Peonies, nor have they had problems with rotting, so I do not put gravel around my plants. However if it is OK for Kew  then I guess it is OK for me. At least it would be a decorative improvement on my bare soil.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ask two gardeners<\/strong> about mulch and you will get three answers. For example when asking about mulching Peonies I got these answers &#8216;Three popular choices are straw, compost or dry leaves.&#8217; &#8216;Some popular spring mulches are shredded bark, pine nuggets or straw.&#8217; So no gravel there then! <\/p>\n<p>Planting too deeply may prevent the peony from flowering, they do better for a bit of frosting on the crown apparently. Peonies can live for over 50 years and mine flower just fine so I am leaving things as they stand ie. very occasional autumn mulch when the compost heap has generated compost to spare .<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/hortoris\/3643709403\/\" title=\"Frank Newbold Peony \"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2482\/3643709403_f86f83c321.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"500\" alt=\"peaonie\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<h3>Tips Prior to Mulching<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Remove any weeds that are growing near the peony shoots or stems. Weeds take water and nutrient and look bad.<\/li>\n<li>Fertilise in spring with a dry compound like growmore.<\/li>\n<li>Fertilise again in autumn with a potash based feeder.<\/li>\n<li>Remove ant rotting vegetation that may harbour fungus or disease.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A four foot square clump of plump new peony shoots were highlighted at Kew Gardens by the grey, gravel mulch around them. I have not suffered from slugs on Peonies, nor have they had problems with rotting, so I do not put gravel around my plants. However if it is OK for Kew then I guess it is OK for me. At least it would be a decorative improvement on my bare soil. Ask two gardeners about mulch and you&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"><a class=\"btn btn-default\" href=\"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/flowers\/mulch-around-red-shoots-of-spring-peony\/\"> Read More<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">  Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-flowers","category-tips"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6540\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}