The Ant & The Peony, a garden haiku, Minneapolis, Minnesota, June 2009, all photos © 2009 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
benevolent myth
growing in gardens worldwide
do ants open buds?
When the peonies on the side of our house start to bud in June, lines of ants quickly follow. Until a moment ago, I believed that ants licked the sugar off the peonies, helping their transition from bud to bloom. Turns out that’s a myth. According to Robert F. Gabella at GardenOpus, the ants’ annual ritual of “tickling of the buds” occurs because they are attracted to the sweet resin on the peonies; the buds would open regardless of the ants.
Of course, it’s more fun to bury my head in the compost and keep believing that the ant has a reciprocal and benevolent relationship to the peony, much like the mythology surrounding the ant and the grasshopper — (for more detail, see ybonesy’s post The Ant & The Grasshopper – Ann Patchett & Lucy Grealy). For me, the myth is more delicious than the truth; perhaps the ant wants to keep its little secret.
A few other Fun Facts about peonies:
- they may not flower until after the first season
- established peonies can be heavy feeders
- peonies are especially needy of potassium (essential for stem strength and disease resistance)
- herbaceous peonies are known to remain in the same position, undisturbed, for over a century
- after cutting, you can remove ants from peonies by using a mild soap spray or dish detergent (from The Old Farmer’s Almanac)
- ants do provide protection–they attack other bud-eating pests by stinging, biting, or spraying them with acid and tossing them off the plant (also from The Old Farmer’s Almanac)
If you are like me, you spend a lot of time digging in the dirt and constantly have questions about plants and gardening solutions. Do you know the names of your flowers? Maybe you have trouble with groundhogs or slugs, or need advice about seed starting, passion flowers, or orchids. You can read more tips from award-winning horticulturist, hybridist, photographer and author Robert F. Gabella at GardenOpus (also found on Twitter!)
-posted on red Ravine, Thursday, June 18th, 2009
-related to posts: haiku 2 (one-a-day), Ghost With A Green Thumb, PRACTICE: Digging in the Dirt – 10min
redravine.wordpress.com 
I prefer the myth too!
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Those are some humungous ants on that peony plant, QM!
I had never heard the myth of the ant and the peony, so all this is news to me. Come to think of it, I have never grown a peony plant. I see them in northern New Mexico and southern Colorado; they must be hardy.
Peony plants, like hollyhocks or dahlias, remind me of old pioneer-type women, women of my grandmother’s generation. I don’t know why.
I have a question: What does it mean when you say the plant is a “heavy feeder”? That it requires nutrients?
BTW, my marigolds are stunted. I have discovered that you should never seed marigolds in shade. Some of the seedlings came up, but they have not grown at all. They are stunted at about one inch, maybe two. Who would have known? I thought marigolds could grow anywhere.
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goddess, yeah, me, too. I think I’m going to go right on believing. 8)
ybonesy, can’t believe you’ve never heard that about peonies and ants. But then I don’t know if peonies grow in your part of the state. I wonder now. But you have seen them in northern New Mexico?
I think peonies are one of those old-style pioneer-type plants. I want to ask my mom if they grow in the South. I most remember them after moving to Minnesota. It seems like they are everywhere here and a favorite of many in our mothers’ generation. They smell sweet and wonderful.
I think being a heavy feeder means that it sucks a lot of nutrients from the ground around it. So you have to augment that with some nutrients that you add to the soil around it.
That worries me because we acquired a few peonies that our Garden Lady neighbor had taken off of her plants that were getting too big. And I may have planted them too close to the other plants around them. We may end up moving them next year. I want to see which ones take root.
I didn’t know these details about peonies until I did this post. But now that I know, I can better take care of the ones beside our house. They haven’t bloomed yet and I think it’s because they are more shaded than our neighbors’ across the street.
One thing about the ants — we have TONS of them in our yard this year. They’ve set up these huge tunnels down in the dryer part of our yard near the street.
Has anyone had to deal with tons of ant hills in their yard? I wondered how people handled them. In the past, we’ve only had one or two colonies and we’ve just let them be. This year, we haven’t gotten enough rain and they’ve just taken over.
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We recently had a vase filled with peonies stolen from our front porch. I hope the people who stole the peonies enjoyed the ants as well as the flowers.
The ants seem to be on the march this year. We have more than usual trying to get in the house. The strange thing is that there doesn’t appear to be a pattern in their entrance to the house so we’re having trouble locating the source of the problem.
Thank you for the tip on GardenOpus. As a gardening neophyte, I need all the help I can get.
Wonderful haiku. 🙂
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I used to know names of flowers. Some I knew since I was a child because my father had the greenest thumb in the entire world. Others I learned when my kids were little. I used to have those little guide books that helped us identify flowers. I also had them for trees, birds, constellations, etc. It was fun to spot something new to us and find it in one of our books.
However, my mind and my memory are not all there these days. I’ve forgotten so much. And I also have the brownest thumb in the entire world! It is only recently that I have become interested, again, in trying to grow anything and that’s because I’m told that if I plant anything outside, it will grow here. So I’m hoping! I did manage to kill my aloe (it froze in the snow) and my chickens and hens (yeah, too much rain and they were in my porch!). We’ll see.
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Aloes like heat. I keep almost killing mine because I forget to water it, and then I bring it back from the dead. I’m worse with house plants than outdoor plants, although I’m not a natural gardener outdoors either.
Today as I dead-headed the rose bushes, I realized that my mother wasn’t a green thumb, and most of my sisters are not either. But Dad was, so I’m trying to tap into that vein. And Mom recently got into gardening, and she did a great job with it. But it’s definitely work. Every week, several days a week.
BTW, Corina, one of the things we kept commenting on last week in California was how lush it was. Plants that we grow in pots are like giant mutants there. I saw geranium bushes!
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Robin, glad we’re not the only ones dealing with the ants. I’m still looking for a non-chemical solution if anyone has one. Sorry to hear about the peonies being stolen from your porch. That seems so odd, doesn’t it? Any clues as to who might have done it?
Corina, it’s so easy to forget everything about plants. My parents knew the names of so many of the plants and trees and flowers that grew around them. I have to make a point of learning and remembering the names. For some reason, I have a hard time especially with trees. It seems to me like they look so different at different ages and different times of year.
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ybonesy, what’s a geranium bush? Was it really a bush or just so huge it looked like a bush? I like geraniums. The red ones remind me of New Mexico. My Mom does have a green thumb. My step-dad, too. When I was traveling around with them to the places I lived as a kid, they knew the names of all the plants and flowers. And also the names of the trees and when they had planted them. It was pretty cool.
Gardening is a TON of work (especially weeding). Our lawn needs to be mowed but it rained today, the day we had planned to mow it. I don’t think I’m a natural gardener at all. But I really love digging in the dirt and watching how quickly things grow and bloom. The whole life cycle process is fascinating to me. The seasonal changes, too.
BTW, our peonies bloomed overnight last night. These HUGE pink blooms that smell fantastic. Just like that. One day a bud, the next a bloom.
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Darn. I was hoping the ant-peony dance was true.
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Yeah, I know. Hard to let go of the old thinking of an altruistic relationship between the ant and the peony. Personally, I’m hanging on to the myth. 8) I think it adds spice to life. I like combining myth and fact.
Hey, maybe myth + fact + emotional coloring = truth. At least one person’s truth.
Our peonies are lying on the grass this morning. We really need to get those rings that you put around them to keep them from falling over. The blooms always seem to weigh down the stems.
Or maybe they are wilting from the heat. It’s already 84 degrees here and it’s only 9am. The heat index is off the charts. It might reach 99 degrees today. I have two fans blowing on me at the studio. 8)
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No clues as to who did it, QM, but it’s interesting to note that there has been a rash of such incidences around here. I went past a house the other day that had a big sign on their front porch which stated “FLOWER POTS AND FLOWERS STOLEN!!”
Perhaps some guy around here has been in hot water with his wife/girlfriend and in his desperation is stealing flowers to give to her. Whatever the case, they don’t seem to be interested in much other than flowers, flower pots, and vases. It’s a pity in a way as this is what I think of as the color orange season. Day lilies and other orange flowers are blooming all along the roadsides. Free and easy pickings without the risk of sneaking onto someone’s porch.
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Robin, that’s kind of strange about the flowers and flower pots being stolen, isn’t it? Or maybe not. It’s true that some flowers and plants are expensive. But it sounds like there’s something else going on there. Yes, the color orange season is almost here in Minneapolis. The day lilies in our yard are about to pop anytime now. We tend to be a bit behind.
But I was so excited when I got home from the studio today because our Cherry Tree, Cheerry Cherry Pie, is full of all these ripe cherries! It’s the first time we’ve had such a big bounty on her. We planted her a few years ago. Today she looked like Christmas, a little wrapped red and green Spring present. 8)
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[…] to posts: The Ant & The Peony, WRITING TOPIC — NAMES OF FLOWERS, Secrets of the Passion […]
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