130 A LITTLE BOOK OF PERENNIALS 



seem to enjoy a thorough baking during the hottest months. When 

 the rains begin coming in September, the roots will show signs of 

 growth; then the plants can be safely transplanted. Oriental Poppies 

 should be mulched in the Wintertime. This mulch does not have to 

 be removed in the Spring for the leaves soon cover it. After the plants 

 are once satisfactorily situated they should be allowed to remain 

 imdisturbed for a number of years. 



The Iceland Poppies are very easily established for they self-sow 

 very readily. If the flowers are cut every day, the plants will produce 

 flowers all during the Summer months. They are extremely hardy and 

 will grow in any soil. 



Propagation. The Oriental Poppies should be divided in the 

 Fall after the plants have been dormant during the hot months, or in 

 early Spring. The roots may be cut into pieces % inches long and 

 planted in sandy soil, in which case new plants may be obtained. 

 Plants may be grown from seed, which requires a great deal of care. 

 The seeds should be gathered as soon as the pods are ripe and begin 

 to open. They should not be sown too thickly and should be wintered 

 over in the coldframe. As soon as new shoots start in the Spring, 

 pot them up, and after they have attained a good size, plant them 

 out in the open soil from the pots. 



The Iceland Poppies self-sow readily. 



Peony 



Peonies have captivated the world. The "old red Piney," that 

 charming, old-fashioned flower, is hardly as popular as it was in days 

 now past, because the new, lovely and more delicately tinted varieties, 

 which have been recently introduced, are crowding their old relative 

 into the background. Peonies in great masses are now found growing 

 around the smaU cottage out in the viUage or country, along roads and 

 woodland paths, in gardens throughout the large cities and around the 

 mansions of the wealthy where they seem to have truly assumed that 

 aristocratic yet charming air so in keeping with the occasion. There 

 is no other hardy flowering plant which grows in the Northern States 

 and endures the Northern Winters as does the Peony. Massive with- 

 out being coarse, fragrant without being pungent, grand without being 

 gaudy, various in form and color, beyond the possibility of being suc- 

 cessfully superseded, they stand in the first rank of hardy flowers. 



The genus PsBonia is divided into two sub-heads, the Shrubby or 

 Tree Peonies and the Herbaceous. See index and table p. 168. 



