Peonies primed to be perennial powerhouse

MAT-SU — Local growers are banking on a budding industry establishing deep roots in the Valley in the near future.

It’s that hope that has the fledgling Alaska Peony Distributors (APD) excited about the future of a burgeoning new agriculture crop that has Alaska growers on the brink of realizing some serious profits, said Meghan Williams, general manager of the distributors group.

“There are at least a dozen people in the Mat-Su right now who are growing peonies,” she said. “The University of Alaska Fairbanks did a 10-year research on the most valuable crops in Alaska, and for us, the peony is the best crop going forward.”

That’s because the flower — a perennial known for its large, colorful blooms — is prized for its beauty and significance in other cultures and for events like weddings, she said. It’s also finicky. Peonies won’t grow in greenhouses and are picky about climate conditions.

That’s what makes Alaska perfect, Williams said. The Last Frontier’s later and more mild growing season means that when locally grown peonies are ready for harvest, they’re the only ones in the world that are fresh and ready to ship at that time.

“They have to be dormant every winter, and the Alaska winter with our snowfall and the good coverage, they come back strong year after year,” Williams said. “There are huge gaps in the year (for peony harvests around the Lower 48), but Alaska peonies are ready from July to September, and in that time, we’re the only producers in the world.”

What that means for Alaska growers is the potential for big business, she said. Alaska Peony Distributors is a fairly new organization and has recently built a handling and processing facility in the Valley. It opens for the first time this season and will give Mat-Su peony growers a place to take their cut stems to sell to wholesalers. It also opens up the Valley for the potential to grow and ship many more flowers in the near future, Williams said.

And that growth is germinating, she said. This year, Alaska growers will produce and sell about 50,000 stems. But in just a few years — by 2016 — the APD expects that number to blossom to about 2 million.

“That’s based on the number of roots,” Williams said. “We still cannot meet anywhere the demand the world has for peonies, which is why it’s such an amazing industry. It’s exciting, especially how fast it’s growing.”

Crunching the numbers, peonies make sense. Those buying peonies at a commercial florist in the Lower 48 can expect to pay as much as $14 a stem, Williams said. In the Valley, however, growers will sell theirs to wholesalers for closer to $4 to $5 a stem, which would give the grower a profit of between $2 and $3 a stem.

That means the 50,000 peonies expected from this year’s crop will bring the 19 Alaska growers and APD between $200,000 and $250,000. But in the next couple years when the perennial plants fully mature and are producing multiple stems a plant, those estimated 2 million flowers will mean about $8 million to $10 million on the wholesale market.

“We’re just trying to get ahead of the power curve now,” Williams said. “Once more farms come online — because it takes three years for the plants to mature — when it really comes around, we’re going to be crushed and the Mat-Su is going to be the heart of that.”

Which is great news for Valley peony growers like Rachel Christy, who owns Alaska Blooms Peony Farm in Meadow Lakes.

Christy’s is a small operation, only an acre, but the peonies she planted in 2011 are starting to produce blooms and she’s in the process of flushing out her 1-acre farm to 5,000 plants. A mature peony plant can produce up to 20 stems, she said, but she’ll only cut about 10 to preserve the plan. Still, when fully operational, her single acre will be producing about 50,000 stems to sell through the distribution center.

Although it takes several years to realize a crop, the plants have a 20-year lifespan of perennial production, Christy said.

“There is a lot of potential, even for individuals who want to plant and have their own crops,” she said.

Those 50,000 stems could bring in $100,000 to $150,000 or more annually.

“Not bad for a summer job, huh?” Christy said. “It’s a pretty good summer gig. Some people have a lot of acreage.”

One of the main reasons the Valley is poised to be the state’s prime producer of peonies is the distribution center, Christy said.

“We’re so fortunate in the Valley to have it,” she said. “For the small farmer, it can be very expensive to have your own cooler and packaging and stuff. But in the Valley, the pack house is a godsend.”

Peonies come in a variety of colors, but Christy said she grows mostly white and pink blooms.

Her favorite is a white peony variety named Bowl of Cream.

“My favorite pink is the Kansas,” she said. “It’s a magenta, and it really does well here in the Valley.”

Another factor that makes Alaska-grown peonies prized are the summers that boast 20 hours of sunlight. That climate produces world-record-sized vegetables, and has the same effect on peonies, Williams said.

“We’re getting the giant flowers,” she said. “We’re getting the giant blooms here.”

Contact Greg Johnson at 352-2269 or

greg.johnson@frontiersman.com.