BRAND PEONY FARMS, Inc. 
How to Plant and Care for Peonies 
J UST as soon as your Peony roots arrive, open 
the package and place the roots in water for 
at least 24 hours. This insures perfect growth. 
Have your soil thoroughly prepared. Plant in a 
good mellow soil with the top of the buds or eyes 
not over two inches below 
the surface level. This is 
very important. Peonies 
planted too deep do not 
bloom. Peonies planted too 
shallow are apt to have the 
crown hurt by the winter 
which causes them to die. 
The illustration inserted 
here shows very plainly how 
deep to plant. The illustra' 
tion is of a good Brand Divi¬ 
sion. You have dug a hole 
two feet in diameter and 
from one to one and a half feet deep. Now place 
enough loose soil back into the hole so that when 
you have tramped it down hard so that it will not 
settle any more, and have placed the peony root 
in the hole, it rests on the bottom with the eyes as 
shown in the illustration, two inches below the 
level of the ground. Hold the division erect in 
the center of the hole with one hand and with the 
other draw in the soil and pack it firmly about the 
root with hands and feet, until the hole is filled 
up so that just the eyes show, then fill in the bah 
ance of the hole, and firm lightly. For the first 
winter mound up the loose dirt over the hole from 
four to six inches and over and above this mound 
(just before winter sets in) place a mulch of two 
inches of some coarse litter. Always mulch Peonies 
the first winter wherever the soil heaves in the 
winter time. Remove the mulch and mound of 
dirt in the spring. 
Before planting be sure to remove all packing 
material such as moss or shavings from about the 
roots and also unwind all 
marking labels. Oftentimes 
a root is killed by planting 
it with the labels wired to 
the plant. 
The Peony does best 
where it is given thorough 
horse cultivation, and the 
finest blooms are generally 
to be had on plants set three, 
four, and five years. Where 
Peonies have to be planted 
on a lawn or in a border 
where they cannot be culti' 
vated with a horse, keep the soil well stirred about 
the plants, preferably with a fork or potato fork. 
Where extra fine specimens are wanted, remove 
soil before planting to a depth of two and a half 
feet. Fill in with well rotted cow manure to a depth 
of a foot when well tramped down. Wet this down 
heavily. Cover and tramp down so that there is at 
least six inches of dirt above the manure. Plant 
roots on this and do not fertilise again for a period 
of three years. 
In cutting the flowers, always leave at least two 
leaves on each stem of the plant left on the bush. 
Don’t cut the tops off your plants after they have 
bloomed until after the first of September, at which 
time they should be cut to the ground and burned. 
A Brand Division. 
Why You Should Plant Peonies this Spring 
For two or three years peonies have been sold below the 
actual cost of producing them. Owing to business condh 
tions there were large stocks in the country that had to 
be disposed of, and stock was offered at extremely low 
prices. 
Growers who expected to remain in the business were 
obliged to meet these prices in order to hold their estab' 
lished trade. But to do so, the wages of help necessary to 
carry on the business were reduced to the minimum. Even 
so, there was no profit to be made. Growers who went to 
the expense of compiling a complete catalog and met the 
other expenses that go with doing business through a good 
catalog have operated at a loss when they were forced to 
meet these low prices. 
There is no incentive for anyone to carry on business 
year after year at a loss. It simply can’t be done. Neither is 
there any incentive for the worker who cultivates, hoes, 
digs, and divides your peonies to do his best when he is 
poorly paid. 
Working codes have established the number of hours the 
laborer in each industry works and the price per hour has 
also been established. Nurserymen in order to retain expert 
enced help must also meet these codes in hours and wages. 
Consequently all nursery labor will be paid higher wages 
per hour and employed shorter hours the coming year. The 
trend is for higher prices. 
At the beginning of the depression many of the stocks 
of peonies were in the hands of persons who handled them 
as a sideline. These people lost their market for peony 
roots almost over night. They no longer took care of their 
stock, but dumped it on the market at whatever price they 
could get. A great deal of this stock has been lost entirely. 
It was sold so cheap that it was put on the market in such 
poor shape that it could not give satisfaction. Other large 
stocks were disposed of in much the same way. Much of 
this stock has simply disappeared. The grower sold it and 
the customer lost it, which proves that we usually get what 
we pay for. 
But the peony and general nursery business is our only 
means of making a livelihood. We hope to remain in it as 
long as we live, so all during the depression we hired our 
usual amount of labor and took most excellent care of all of 
our stock. Our nursery is in just as good shape today as it 
was in 1926 and 1927. We can deliver to our customers 
just the same large, strong roots full of vitality as we have 
delivered to them in the past. The roots we now have in 
storage were grown and divided under wages paid the past 
two years. We are offering these roots this spring without 
an increase in price. 
For the above reasons we feel that now is the time to 
make your purchases. 
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