I have peonies that are much too wide for tomato cages. There is a demand for inexpensive peony supports and I am sure you will refine your design as time goes on. Al

My peonies are way too bushy for this type of rig - all but the center stems would be flopping out the sides, LOL! And I don't understand, after you pull the legs out of the soil as you said, what's to keep the whole thing from tipping over with the weight of the flowers? Even using those cages for tomatoes with the legs anchored in the soil, they tip over.

I just use that plastic green garden tape and whatever's handy to stake and tie them up. It's invisible and not a big deal.

Count me in as another person who does not like to spend the money on store-bought cages. Every year, in the very early spring, I would go to the store to look at those cages. Every year I ended up passing ($6 for one wire cage?? I think not!). I also make my own, for peonies and other plants.

-Mindy, is the 'Hardwire Cloth' you use wire fencing? Or is it the plastic kind that are used for vines? I get that you move the cage up (not take it out all-together) when the peony itself grows. But how do you keep from stripping the foliage off when you move it up?

What I did for mine was to cut down some wire fencing, the kind that comes on a roll from Lowes. The section was around two feet tall and three long or more. I cut out some of the cross sections near the bottom to make long spikes to drive into the ground, all around the peony. Tie together at the back.
When the peonies get droopy from the rain they can rest their pretty heads on the wire fencing around it. You can cut a section of the fencing to whatever size you need for the plant in question. I like doing this method because you don't have to instal it just as the peony is popping out of the ground; you can do it even when they are in bud. You can also take it out later and not damage the plant.

I use that sort of cage for the shorter peonies and things like my Geranium magnificum, which also flops in the rain. But for my Peony lactiflora (Chinese Peony) I have to do something different because it is more upright and tall. I drive three or more nice sticks/branches (you can use rebar stakes too) into the ground around the peony. Then I weave twine inbetween them at the top. The blooms and stems rest against this. I like the naturalistic look of the branches, and often leave this rig up all the growing season.

Fun thread Mindy. Hope you will someday posts pics of these 120 peonies (though I imagine they are not all in one spot??)
CMK

cmk, your encircling method is another good one (and your anchoring feet method a smart one too)but your cages are more visible than ours, imo. We leave our cages in year round. Unlike yours, they don't need to be removed to cut down the foliage before winter. They also don't require fastening of their sides. And they can be stacked. What we use for the tops is metal Hardware cloth , not melon netting. We have never had trouble stripping off the leaves when we lift the cages up, but we actually very rarely need to lift up the cages.

To the other posters: the circumference of the top rung of our cages is about 16 or 18" and is adequate for our largest peonies (the outer stems that are too wide to fit into the bottom rungs- can, as they reach their top height, still be woven up into the wider top rung, long before the buds open.)

BTW, the (otherwise discarded) lowest and narrowest tomato cage rung with feet- can be used to support low growing floppies like veronica crater lake blue, or sedum.

best,
mindy
the cotton-arbo retum

I have done the same thing for years. However, instead of the hardware cloth, I use aluminum electric fence wire and criss-cross it across the top ring. It works just the same.

I do the pretty much the same thing as patlovesdirt with my peonies because they are so large. I can't even squeeze most of them into the expensive, larger peony supports.

However, I can see many other uses in the garden for other plants that this would work great with. Thanks for sharing this Mindy!

kowaleka,
that's brilliant!

mindy
The Cotton-Arbo retum