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A week or 2 before the first freeze of the season, cover your planted peonies with mulch. You can use a commercial mulch if you’d like, but weeds, straw, pine needles, sawdust and grass will work just fine. Cover each of your planting sites with a 4–6 in (10–15 cm) layer of your preferred mulching material.  While peonies certainly need cold weather to grow, you don’t want the roots themselves to freeze too quickly or for too long. Mulching the soil insulates it and ensures that the soil won’t freeze and thaw repeatedly through the season. Most peonies need around 400-hours of exposure of near-freezing temperatures in the winter to bloom completely in the summer. You do not need to mulch peonies that you’re storing indoors. Indoor peonies do not require as many freezing hours, since their root systems won’t get that big anyway. Keep your pot near a chilly window during the winter months. As spring starts, wait for the temperature to consistently rise above 32 °F (0 °C). Once it has been above freezing for a few weeks, remove the mulch from your plant. Use a shovel or throw on some thick gloves and scrape it off the top of the soil. If you accidentally scrape away some of the top soil, go ahead and replace it. Get a fertilizer that is low in nitrogen from your local gardening store. As spring progresses, you’ll soon notice stems sticking out of the ground. When the stems get to be around 2–3 inches (5.1–7.6 cm) high, sprinkle 2-3 tablespoons (15-20 g) of fertilizer into the soil and mix it with your top soil by hand or with a trowel. You may not see any stems emerge from the soil for the first 1-2 years. Over the course of the first 2 years, you may not notice much progress with your peonies. Peonies can live over 25 years, but they take a while to get going. During the first 2 years, water your plants every other week to ensure that the soil retains moisture and the roots get some water. Apply a soft stream of water to the top soil for 5-6 seconds when you go to water the rest of your garden.  You do not need to water your peonies in the winter. You can water less frequently once stems begin to grow. If your flower is going to bloom on a given year, you’ll notice the stems in early-to-mid spring. Once you notice your flowers growing, water them once every 3-4 weeks. Peonies are pretty easy to care for after the first few years, and it’s particularly hard to starve them of water since their root systems are so efficient. Give them a few seconds of water by spraying around the stem of the plant once your peonies have grown. Peonies typically bloom around April or May. The blooms may only last a few weeks, but they’ll be back next year! Once your plants start to wither, you need to trim them down to avoid starving the roots. Grab a set of garden shears a week before the first freeze of the winter season. Cut your flowers down until there are only 3 inches (7.6 cm) of stem remaining  near the soil. Mulch the soil and repeat the process to ensure that your flowers come back next year. You can prune your plant to remove dead bulbs if you’d like, but peonies typically don’t require much (if any) pruning. The biggest predators when it comes to peonies are blight, rot, and fungus. If you ever notice discolored fungus or dark rot setting into your plants, trim them down to the topsoil and discard the damaged portions of each plant. Wait for a year to allow the winter frost to kill any remnants of the disease.  Peonies tend to be very resilient when it comes to insects and illness. If you ever have a year where your plants seem sickly, the winter will freeze away most of the common offenders and your plants will grow back beautifully next year. You may notice ants feeding on the flowers when they bloom. Don’t worry about the ants, they can’t permanently damage the plant and won’t cause very much trouble—they’re only there for the secretions that come out of the flowers.

Summary:
Mulch your flowers over the winter to protect your plants. Remove the mulch once spring arrives and the ground thaws. Add a low-nitrogen fertilizer to your soil when the stems emerge. Water your plants once every other week for the first 2 years. Give peonies water once every 3-4 weeks after the stems grow. Cut your flowers down to 3 in (7.6 cm) as the following winter sets in. Trim your plants down to the base of the stem if they get ill.