THE BONNEWITZ GARDENS, VAN WERT, OHIO 
The Story of the Long Lost Peony 
Years and years ago before the activities of any of the present members of 
the Peony Society and very probably even before the Peony Society was formed, 
a party of about thirty ladies and gentlemen were invited to visit a garden. I 
am not sure where that garden was located, because some versions of the story 
say Philadelphia, other versions say Boston and one lone but insistent version 
says New York. The only thing we absolutely know, is that the garden was in 
a city. 
It was a beautiful garden and the guests enjoyed it, as all nature-lovers 
should; but the culminating point of the visit, the treat which the host had 
retained till the last, was a group of three peonies, which on that day were bloom¬ 
ing to perfection. These peonies were screened from the rest of the garden by 
some shrubbery, and the host took particular interest in bringing all his guests 
together at this point at about the same time. 
You should have heard the exclamations of surprise, pleasure, joy, and 
astonishment in the great beauty of the blooms, for no one in the United States, 
except the host, had ever seen such beautiful flowers. There they were, at least 
a dozen or fifteen main blooms on each plant, of a delicate flesh-pink, which 
while bleaching out to a paper-white, still retained the warmth of the pink. Each 
bloom had a spread of between six and eight inches and showed a golden glow 
at the center, and each of these main blooms was surrounded by three or four 
lateral blooms with a deeper and fresher shade of pink, but with the delicacy, 
size, and form of a water-lily. Is it any wonder that nature-lovers should go 
into ecstasies over such blooms ? 
When the excitement had subsided, the host explained that four years pre¬ 
viously, in June, he had been traveling in England and that in a private garden 
he had found this beautiful peony, and because he had fallen in love with it, 
just as his guests were now doing, he had, at considerable expense, persuaded 
the owner to part with it. He had it shipped to his home city the following 
September, and when it arrived he had divided the original plant into the three 
which were blooming so prolifically before them. 
All the versions of the story agree on two points. First: each one of the 
guests who owned a garden wanted at once to know how he could procure a 
plant exactly like these. Second: those poor unfortunates who lived in apart¬ 
ments and hotels felt anew their poverty of life even though they could write 
their checks for thousands, for possessions such as these were only for those 
who dwelt close to nature. 
The host was not able to tell them the name of the nursery in England where 
the plants had been grown; but he promised to try to find, through the original 
owner of his plants, where they could be obtained. This he did, and so, late in 
July, or early in August, he was able to furnish the name of the nursery and to 
tell them that the price in England was 10s, 6d. 
We have no means of knowing how many of them took advantage of this 
information; but all versions agree that not only guests at the original garden 
party, but also their friends who had been told of this most wonderful peony, 
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