Peonies do not need a lot of feeding. I would give it a mulch of farm yard manure most years. Is it a tree peony of perenniel?

We've never fed any of our peonies tree or perennial...

Oh my!! good question Wyeboy, it was a gift - Pretty sure its a perenniel

Farm yard manure is the best but if you cant get hold of it chicken pellets in early spring does the job too or a general mulch of compost. MG, dont the plants eventually suffer as they are taking nutrients out of the soil which are not replaced?

Was going to say chicken poo too !!

Grandmage and Mageth I have a tub of chicken poo so its dinner time, thanks ladies

Mageth they don't appear to... grow extremely well for us. To be honest we don't really feed any plants growing in the open ground. When we renovate an area we dig in lots of organic material and the woodlandy type beds get the occasional covering of decorative bark. If the soil is good and healthy then the nutrients are being replaced naturally by falling leaves and other matter that composts down. If you think about it no one is feeding the plants when they grow in the wild. We leave twigs etc that fall onto the woodland beds to rot down as for the alpine beds the plants need a lean soil.

Aahh. i think the confusion is over the term "feed". your feed is the organic stuff which you dig in when preparing the soil for planting. Mulches "feed" the soil too. the other type of food is fertilizers, either organic or inorganic. at the end of the day, all soils need feeding to a greater or less extent and hence feed the plants

Can a peony grow in semi-shade?

Hi Mageth yes in that sense we feed...

Yes Great it can.

thanks