smothering plants ?

hiya .. i moved into my house (garden!) a couple of months ago and in one corner there are 2 plants together .. the biggest one is what i am guessing is some kind of fuchsia (pic attached) and i think its smothering a peony .. would it do that or am i making things up as I go here lol
when i first moved in the assumed peony was just leaves with a couple of large buds on .. they opened up and were stunning huge pale pink flowers. they have since died off and the plant has not grown any more as its completely over-shadowed by what i am guessing is a fuchsia .. when you get into the fuchsia the peony is still green, but you just cant see it anymore.
Do you have any suggestions as to what i should do ? should i cut back the fuchsia? dig out the peony and move it ? .. ideally i would love to keep both plants but being new to this i dont know if i should be doing things like cutting and/or moving at this time.
thanks for any help you can give.
Eri x

 

Hi
If you cut back the Fuchsia you may find it comes back bigger, that is what I did to mine in March,and it put on a real growth spurt.

I think you would be best advised to move the Peony,but not nowI am sure someone will advise on how and when as you have to be careful not to plant too deep.

 

ahhh that explains a lot then .. when i moved into this garden the fuchsia had been hacked half to death, there is a huge trunk like thing and lots of dead looking stems etc when it had been attacked all that was left was a couple of green stems .. the neighbour next door said the bloke who was here before came out with a saw and just went to work on it grrrr . no wonder its growing like mad now .. its revenge for the previous owners!! lol
thank you for your reply Pam
Eri x

 

I agree with Pamsdish. It would be best to move the paeony. Leave it until it dies back later in the season. Unfortunately they don't really like being moved, so it may take a couple of years before it decides to bloom in it's new position.

 

That's definitely a fuchsia Back-in-Black. If you like it then the bigger the better.
It would be easier to move the peony than the fuchsia.
I would tend to agree with Sheal and say the peony might not flower for several years after being moved BUT.......
my husband has always disagreed with me about that and we have had that discussion on here before with some people finding they flower fine after being moved, so I think you pay your money and take your chance.
I would still go for move the peony.

 

Hi
Another thought on this.. from a relative newbie. Is this not a bit of well planned planting, the peony has flowered for this year and now the fuschia has taken over whilst the peony fades into the background. Only a guess and another way of looking at it.
Good luck with the new garden! and the new home!

 

I moved a peony last year, I did'nt know what I was doing, I dug it up in May:DOH:and put it in at the top of the rockery just in garden soil, no feed, no watering:DOH: I thought I'd killed it for sure, then all the leaves fell off and it was gone.

But this spring it came back, I noticed red shoots when weeding (the top of the rockery had tons of weeds) so I put woodchip from my shrudder around the shoots...



then it formed one bud....


and flowered.....


so they can take some abuse, its just not recomended


Plant Potty.

 

Apologies for the delay in replying, i've not had internet access.

Tthanks again everyone for the help .. and well done potty on your peony, its beautiful .. the one i have does not stand up like yours does .. mine sort of lays on the grass lolol

I've tied back the fuchsia some more to try give the peony a bit of light and found some furry doodahs on it which i assume are seed pods ? i've taken them off and put on the kitchen wiindowsill as i've been told they need to dry out .. hope thats the right thing to do lol

Eri xx

 

Thanks Eri, if you're talking about the flower standing up it would'nt, if you look at the photo you can see the stick I put in to take the wieght, tied to the flower stalk with string.

My mate has just moved in up the road and today I've been around having a tidy up in his new garden, the front path was over grown to the point where peeps walk across the lawn instead, I cut I pile of stuff back so you can now use the path, and saved about severn peony heads, tho I'm not sure thats the correct thing to do (pick or leave until they start to open???), but it was a choice of that or the compost heep, I've "heard" they take forever to flower when grown from seed, tho I dont know thats true?, I shall try some and see, the only thing I would add is about the seed itself and if they are ready or viable or not, my mate has so many peony growing randomly (prob about 8 plants with up to 6 heads each) some have been trampled by builders and the heads broken open, or they were open and that made the seed drop, but that seed was real big like a bright pink kidney been about 8mm in length, others that I've pulled apart only have very small seed about 2mm in lenght, I dont know if thats coz the seeds are under devolped or just not viable? only time will tell?:WINK1:

Plant Potty.

 

Peonies are one of the flowers that must have support, the heads are so heavy for the stems.

Either as it starts to sprout in spring push some pea sticks,(cut offs from bushes):o or you can buy small supports , The pound shop or I got some larger ones in "Wilkos" a few years ago ,then let the plant grow round them encouraging the stems in the direction you want.