It’s my favorite flower season- peonies are in bloom. With peonies needing at least three years to become established, my own peonies are all Sarah Bernhardt variety. They have a medium, soft pink with some specks of a darker pink. Thanks to this unusual weather for late May, these peonies are blooming earlier, just in time with the last blooms of the iris. I only have one bearded iris variety, but my one root I bought 8 years ago has turned into two iris patches of at least 60 plants each. Stairway to Heaven bearded iris variety is a light blue/purple on the tips of the petals that gradient into a white on the inside. The light blue iris with the medium pink peony creates a balance between the two colors for a beautiful floral arrangement.
Early Peony Weather
Most years in the Alleghenies, we have some warm May days followed by rain- and lots of it. This May and early June . . . we are in a drought. It is not just the Alleghenies and Pennsylvania, but other areas across the country are needing rain too. Peterson Brother’s in Kansas share about their hay crop needing rain. MIGardener shares about his Michigan forecast of no rain in sight for two weeks, only after not having rain for two weeks already.
Although we need rain desperately, the heat wave brought on some peony blooms while the iris were finishing their season, allowing for the creation of a beautiful floral arrangement.
Stairway to Heaven Bearded Iris
All my iris blooms come from a $7 root I bought while in college. I planted it, and then some years later, dug up all that reproduced, and moved them to my new home. Then two years later, I did the same process, splitting them upon replanting. I’ve been noticing how some iris patches don’t have a million and a half blooms. I think it really comes down to whether the roots are separated enough over the years.
These blooms are huge! Some stems even have 4 blooms waiting to open. They have a bluish-purple hue along the exterior of their petals that transition into white. On this white section, they have little “fuzzies” with a tint of yellow.
They do have a faint scent. When they are first in bloom, it is a sweet scent. But overtime, the scent can turn sour.
How to Harvest Bearded Iris
The stem length should be relatively long. Follow the stem until you reach the first or second leaf. Iris is a “sword” flower, meaning its leaves are in the shape of swords. Gladioli are the same way.
Use a pair of floral shears to cut the stem. Place in water while continuing to pick other stems in the garden.
Sarah Bernhardt Peony
The queen of peonies, Sarah Bernhardt Peonies have medium pink petals with streaks and specks of a darker pink. The number of petals they have- oh my goodness.
Their smell is a sweet, rosy scent that will make anyone swoon over it. It is strong, but it is sure beautiful.
The plants I have, I bought peony roots at Walmart and Home Depot and planted them at my first home my first year I was married. Fast forwards two years, I had to dig them up in May, seeing them flop over and wilt. An additional two years later, they are mature producing quality size blooms to harvest for arrangements.
How to Harvest Peony
Peonies come in different bloom stages. The bud stage is where the peony’s petals are covered with green. You can’t see the petals, besides very little. This is not the stage to pick peonies. They do need to open slightly before harvesting. Wait until much of the petals can be seen, or ideally, wait until the peony bloom has reached marshmallow stage. Marshmallows are squishy and soft upon touching. That is what we want when harvesting peonies. The exterior petals may still be hovering over top of the interior ones. It’s okay as long as the green is not covering all of the stem.
When cutting the peony stem, cut a good way down. Think about 18-24”. Cut above one of the leaves. Cutting here on any flowering plant will encourage the stem to grow. Granted a peony stem will be done growing, but cutting here will also help the peony stem in the vase absorb water and floral food.
Strip the leaves. Then, use the floral shears to snip off the top leaves with those top buds. Yes, they would turn into blooms, but it will be taking energy away from the main already blooming flower. And that’s if they would start blooming in the vase.
Store peonies in a bucket of water until all stems have been harvested. If it is just a few stems, harvest intentionally, and then place stems in a vase of water as soon as you enter the house.
Ingredients for Peony Iris Floral Arrangement
Fill a vase halfway with the addition of two packets of flower food. I chose a relatively plain vase, but one that is rather on the tall side. I had long stems that I want to use every inch of them that I can.
Lay out some stems of ferns. In our woods, we have plenty of ferns available to use as greenery.
Lay out all the peonies. Have all the blooms face one way.
Lay out the iris stems. For this arrangement, I chose some stems with just one flower and other stems where they had about 4 flowers.
How to Create a Floral Vase Arrangement with Iris and Peony
Add three ferns to the vase. These will be the base greenery layer. Some greenery works between flowers. Ferns work best if they are used as the bottom portion of the arrangement.
Add three iris stems in sets of three. The first three should go between the ferns.
Add the peonies. Start with three, and then continue to add to the arrangement.
I saved the taller iris for the center of the bouquet. What is neat about these is that they have blooms lower on the stem that will help fill in.
I ended up adding some extra peonies as well to balance the arrangement. The floral arrangement went in layers starting with the ferns, then the shorter iris, the peonies, and then the taller iris.
Life of the Peony Iris Bouquet
I absolutely loved this peony arrangement. The pink peonies matched the color tone of the bearded iris absolutely beautifully. The first day- oh my goodness. It was so beautiful!
Nevertheless, flowers have all sorts of different shelf life. Peonies were picked at their prime, but the iris were picked when they were going out of season. There is no good way to change this, unless one would experiment with keeping the unbloomed iris in a chilled place.
The ferns need to be cut along the bottom, opening it up to water. They have more of a woody stem, so they did not do as well with absorbing water from the vase. They ended up wilting after a few days.
The bearded iris blooms did last longer, but all were exhausted and finished three days later.
The peonies are going strong. Peonies can last about two weeks, depending if they are watered with flower food and the temperature they are kept at. Just some perspective, when I made my own peony bouquet for my wedding, I stuck the bouquet in a vase in the fridge for the two weeks we were gone- and all the flowers were still in complete bloom. Peonies have such a long vase life.
Short Vase Life of the Floral Arrangement
The end result of this bouquet is the ferns and irises are to be removed, leaving the peonies to flourish. I wouldn’t leave the dead ferns or iris in the vase because it could start harboring bacteria that could shorten the stem life of the peony.
This is heart-breaking to think that creating a beautiful arrangement would only last a few days, but I don’t want to romanticize this bouquet to where you would try the same thing and be disappointed to see not all the stems didn’t last long. I find that it is worth it to create this beautiful arrangement to enjoy the colors, the scents, the design even just for a few days.
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