Should you deadhead your peonies?

DEADHEADING PEONIES IS GENERALLY A GOOD IDEA

Before you grab the pruners, there’s one question to ask after your peonies finish blooming: should you remove those old flower heads or leave them on?

For most gardeners, deadheading peonies offers several benefits. The most obvious is appearance. Removing spent blooms helps keep plants looking neat and attractive throughout the summer. When cutting, remove the stem just above a leaf node to help conceal the cut and maintain the plant’s natural shape.

There’s another important reason to deadhead: seed production.

While not all peony varieties produce seed pods, many do. Once the petals fall, the plant begins directing energy toward developing seeds. By removing those developing seed pods, the plant can instead devote that energy to maintaining healthy foliage and building a stronger root system for next year's growth and blooms.

If your goal is the healthiest, most vigorous peony plant possible, we recommend removing the seed pods after flowering.

Here at Hidden Springs Peony Farm, we deadhead all of our peonies for this reason. We also grow our peonies in fields organized by variety, and allowing seed pods to mature could result in volunteer seedlings popping up throughout the fields. Since seedlings are never identical to their parent plants, they would disrupt the variety organization we work hard to maintain.

However, there is one good reason to leave those seed pods on.

If you'd like to grow peonies from seed, allow the seed pods to mature. Peony seeds offer the opportunity to create something entirely new. Unlike divisions, which produce an exact copy of the parent plant, seedlings inherit a mix of characteristics from their parent plants. The result is a unique peony with its own flower color, form, fragrance, and growth habits.

So while removing seed pods is generally best for the plant, leaving a few behind can be the first step toward discovering a future garden favorite.

You decide!