ower Beautiful! 
100 World’s Best Peonies 
CHOSEN FROM OVER 1,000 VARIETIES IN COMMERCE 
T O THOSE who have come to know and love 
the Peony as we do, perhaps little need be 
said about the glory of a flower whose bril¬ 
liant and delicate colorings a Corot or a De 
Longpre would have despaired of matching. But 
it seems so many flower-lovers know Peonies 
merely as large double whites, pinks, and reds 
such as Festiva Maxima, Mons. Jules Elie, and 
Felix Crousse, and that may be the end of their 
Peony knowledge. We have so many distinctive 
singles, semi-doubles, and doubles whose color, 
texture, and refinement of bloom is almost un¬ 
equaled in any other flower; then, surely, they 
deserve to be better known than they are at pres¬ 
ent. This fact is always brought home to us when 
visitors, admiring Peonies in our display gardens, 
invariably rush up to those which are considered out of the ordinary—the 
Japanese and Single varieties and those delicately colored doubles. And when 
we exhibit these kinds at various flower shows, they are the center of attraction 
for the true flower-lover who considers them most unusual and rare. We are 
therefore very anxious to bring to your attention these unusual Peonies and 
make it clear that there are many inexpensive kinds besides the old double “pineys” 
of your grandmother’s garden. So be one of the first in your neighborhood to 
grow Peonies that are distinctive and cause one to linger over them where the 
more common varieties would be passed by. 
We who study Peonies realize they are quite temperamental in plant per¬ 
formance and blooming qualities. Some varieties are not as free-blooming as 
we would like to see them, even though they regularly produce fine stalks and 
foliage. During the past five years, we have, therefore, discarded more than 
fifty varieties of doubtful blooming qualities in favor of those we know will 
bloom every year in the garden of the average Peony enthusiast. Strangely 
enough, several of the choicest varieties, like, for instance, Solange and Walter 
Faxon, oftimes prize-winners in amateur as well as professional competition, 
can only be depended on to produce full, typical blooms about every other year, 
to give the hobbyist his biggest thrill. While we cater to the advanced amateur 
grower, may we repeat that we are still more anxious to bring Peonies to gardens 
where they are not well known and whose owners will some day be thankful 
for this introduction to the hardiest and grandest of all perennials. 
The Best Size of Root to Plant 
One of our most noted amateur authorities on Peonies has this to say: “What are called 
1-year roots are the plants that have resulted from the divisions (slices of 3-year roots) of 
last year, but evidently the nurseryman can save himself money by selling the divisions at 
once to his customers without taking the trouble to replant and cultivate for a year. These 
freshly made divisions are very commonly offered in the trade, and at prices much below 
those for 1-year roots. The question is whether the purchaser is wise to take them and the 
subject is much debated among the growers. My own judgment on it is this: Where the 
