Sorry to disagree....but if you dig peonys out of the ground and "bare root" them for a couple of weeks, when they are activly growing....you will be lucky to have them live, let alone bloom in 2 years. Iris are tough guys, they probably would be OK and one or 2 of the rhizomes might put up a bloom stalk. The rhizomes of the daylilys would probably shrivel up and die of left bare root for 2 or 3 weeks during the time when they are activly growing. If you really must dig during August ( and if you are going to wait 2 or 3 weeks to plant, you really should get them in the ground in time to re establish before winter sets in..should plant by Sept 15th or maybe just a little later at the outside) dig the plants with as much soil around their roots as you can manage and put then in either pots, or a sand box as you say but fill it with top soil or sphagnum moss which you have gotten really damp before you put them there....or shredded wood mulch or bark or wood chips....something that will hold moisture. This is the time of the year when plants are activly storing energy/carbohydrates in their roots to survive the winter and to put out growth next spring. Plants make energy through their leaves and sunlight ( photosynthesis....remember that from 9th grade?) and when you interrupt this process by cutting off the leaves or digging them up so they can't send water to the leaves and keep them green, you impair their abilty to survive the winter. If the reason you are digging them is to amend the soil in the bed....you would be a lot better off just amending with the plants in place....do a sheet compost....or lots of top dressing for several springs. The worms will take the nutrients where you need it. Linda C

and I'm wondering why one has growth, while the other one has done nothing yet. I planted both in the back yard, which recieves plenty of sunshine, is one just maybe slower to wake up? They're both the same type, the pink tree type. I also noticed that the raspberry sundae peonies I planted, there were 4 total, 3 have growth, while the 4th has done nothing. Again these are the bare root types, I can't afford to go and buy the already established ones, or I'd go broke. Should I just wait and see what happens? I'm hoping that they'll do something, I have several other peonies and I know that they're slow growers, but never had the tree type before and want them to do well. Thanks for any input.

Hi, I have these as well, so far, one of them has started to develop some green near the base, the other one hasn't done anything yet, I'm still waiting. I buy most of my peonies bare-root-24 so far, I think. They take time, but they do look nice when they finally bloom. Tree peonies are new to me, so I'm being patient and I did follow the planting instructions, so hopefully in a few years I'll have blooms to enjoy.

There are so many varieties of peonies that look similar, Redroses. What performs well in my zone 4B garden might grow like crazy or languish in the heat of your zone 6 garden. I'd suggest going to gardens with peonies in your immediate area and zeroing in on the ones that perform best there, saves you the heartbreak of babying roots that will never perform the best in your area. Cheddar Charm is a Klehm peony bred from Bowl of Cream. It's a Japanese that blooms mid-season for peonies so should be done before the heat of summer for you. I'd probably not try it here because Bowl of Cream has been one of my dismal failures, probably because of our late snows every spring. Just because one or both of the parents do poorly doesn't necessarily doom the child plant but...... The APS website has a listing of peony gardens by state if you're not sure what's in your area. I think Karen shared the list here last year as well if you just want to go back through a lot of the old posts, I do that sometimes in the winter when the weather's too bad to go outside. It's amazing how much info is posted here that I miss in the busy-ness of spring/summer that I collect later!