HE vogue of the Peony is in the ascendant. The 

 profound interest of amateur gardeners in this flower 

 is due, I believe, not only to the superb blooms of the 

 newer and newest introductions, but to a marked 

 familiarity with the different types, a knowledge 

 brought about by the critically ambitious Amateur 

 forming collections and using the rare judgment and finer percep- 

 tion usually only given to the rose. There are certain varieties 

 peculiarly adapted to certain positions ; for example, take the two 

 Festiva peonies, Festiva Maxima, tall, and Festiva dwarf, whose 

 great white blooms are still unrivaled by any of the newer white 

 varieties. Employing both the tall and the dwarf Festivas as a 

 border to such flowering shrubs as Styrax Japonica or the Japanese 

 Magnolia parviflora or the Sweet Magnolia (Magnolia glauca), 

 whose wonder blooms of ivory white are aflower with the Festiva 

 peonies. It is as a framing or as borders to great mass plantings 

 that these two varieties are employed at their very best. In the 

 herbaceous garden peonies of the finely clouded, suffused and 

 changeable pink and opal tints placed with our blue and rare white 

 Delphiniums are indescribably charming. Of these, we have Claire 

 Dubois, Baroness Schroeder, Jeanne d'Arc, Dorchester, Madame 

 Breon, Emile Gallee, Asa Gray, Madame de Gallian, and the 

 remarkable Marguerite Gerard, sometimes called Queen's Rose. 



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