The Garden Magazine, June, 1923 
259 
which shoot up above the surface, and these “suckers,” if not 
very carefully watched and ruthlessly cut away, will overgrow 
the precious graft, smother it out, take all the nourishment from 
the roots, with the result that in four or five years, when your 
plant ought to be developing into a fine garden object, what 
you paid your money for has died, and you have in place a 
nightmare of a thing for which no spade is quick enough. 
The Japanese still, to-day, pursue the same method, and those 
who buy roots from Japan still have the same experience with 
them; though not always, it must be admitted. Sometimes one 
of these plants settles down and behaves itself, gets over its 
passion for starting suckers and becomes a delightful ornament 
for the garden, but the chances are about ten to one against its 
turning out so. 
The European propagators had, of course, the same experi¬ 
ence with the roots they got from Japan, and they decided to 
use, for grafting, the roots of the Herbaceous Peony. These 
roots, if they do not carry portions of the crown with them, 
rarely or never form any buds and so it has become the custom 
in Europe to graft the Tree-Peony onto roots of the herbaceous 
sorts. This method gives a healthy enough plant, which 
settles down in the garden, makes fair growth, forms no suckers, 
and gives no trouble of any kind; but also, unfortunately, gives 
very often no blooms. Apparently the union of herbaceous 
roots with a shrubby top is not so completely satisfying from 
the plant’s point of view as it appears to be. , 
At any rate, the results are very disappointing. One may 
have European Tree-Peony plants in the garden for twelve or 
fifteen years without seeing a bloom from them. On the other 
hand, just as with the Japanese, they do occasionally settle down 
and thrive and bloom to one’s heart’s content; but such cases are 
again exceptional. 
When On Their Own Roots 
N OW what is the conclusion of the matter? Plainly, our 
Tree-Peonies must be on their own roots; and there are 
three ways in which they can get there. Very old, established 
plants, whether originally Japanese or European in origin, will 
usually have established a root system of their own. That is to 
say, the scion will have struck out roots where it goes into the 
ground and these will have developed to such an extent that the 
plant may be lifted, and after the old stock is cut away, it may 
be divided almost like an ordinary Herbaceous Peony. Such 
divisions usually make very good plants, but to adopt this 
method for the propagation of fine varieties would mean that 
the parent plant could only be lifted and divided after at least 
five or six years, and this method therefore is not at all satis¬ 
factory from the nurseryman’s point of view. 
There is another plan which sounds as if it ought to give 
satisfactory results, and yet 1 do not know of its having been 
tried. This is to graft Tree-Peonies back upon their own roots. 
If this were done, any suckers that were formed on the roots 
would be of the same character as the top and yet the rate of 
multiplication ought to be fairly satisfactory. I do not know 
whether this plan has been tried on a large scale, and multipli¬ 
cation of Peonies by grafting is not work that the amateur is 
likely to be successful with. The grafted plants require skill¬ 
ful treatment and the right conditions in order to get a good 
start, and the amateur can rarely supply either! 
Seed and Success 
T HE third method by which one can get Tree-Peonies on 
their own roots is one I have long advocated for the amateur, 
one which I have followed in my own garden, and which has now 
proved itself a complete success. This method is to raise 
Tree-Peonies from seed. The seed germinates slowly, and 
usually likes to lie over a full year in the ground. Also germi¬ 
nation at best is somewhat uncertain, though I am inclined to 
think that the percentage of casualties would be likely to be 
smaller in gardens farther south than they are in mine at Clin¬ 
ton, N. Y. But making allowances for uncertainty of germi¬ 
nation and loss of young plants afterward, the fact remains 
that one can, without too much trouble, obtain a group of young 
seedlings, if not on the first trial, at any rate after a few years. 
These youngsters have quality from the very beginning, their 
foliage is individual in character, and by the time they are two or 
three years old, they are already handsome garden plants. 
There is no hope of seeing blooms short of five or six years 
at the least from the time when the seed is planted. So for 
those who must have their gardens made for them overnight, 
this method will be too slow; but for the rest of us who love 
our plants and who derive a particular pleasure from filling our 
gardens with those which we have known from seed-leaf time 
onward, the growing of Tree-Peonies, of Peonies generally, and 
in fact of many slow-growing plants, from seed, has a charm that 
is not just like any other garden experience. 
When the Dream Comes True 
T HERE was one question, however, about these seedlings 
which had to be answered before we could know whether 
this method of securing Tree-Peony plants for our gardens was 
really worth following. And everything hung upon the answer 
time should give to this question—what will be the quality of 
the flowers produced by our seedlings? The answer came last 
spring in my own garden. Winter is often hard on Tree-Peonies; 
not that the plants are likely to be killed, but that the bloom 
buds which are exposed to all the vicissitudes of climate are 
apt to be found dead in spring. If the plants are carefully 
covered with pine boughs or given protection in other ways 
it helps a good deal. 
Now we happen to have had before the,winter of 1921-22 
several bad seasons, with the result that my young plants, 
though of an age to bloom, had most of them never succeeded 
in developing any flowers. But meanwhile, the plants had been 
increasing in size, and when the next winter, which was a 
phenomenally gentle one for plants, had safely passed, 1 
found to my delight that almost all of a group of about three 
dozen Tree-Peony seedlings were covered with buds. We 
awaited the approach of the blooming season with great hopes, 
and not without some doubts. But as the blooms began to 
expand one after the other, it became daily more evident that 
the theory I had so long held was to be more than justified. 
I can say at once that taking the plants as they run their 
average is as good as the average of the listed kinds, whether of 
Japanese or European origin. 
Out of the three dozen plants I dug up and threw away only 
two for unsatisfactory color, and 1 have done exactly the same 
thing with purchases of named sorts from Europe and Japan. 
And here among these seedlings we had again that wonderful 
range of pinks which makes the Tree-Peony so unique a flower; 
pinks that range from the palest flesh or a white just washed 
with lavender, through rose pink, into cherry pink, and from 
cherry pink into cherry red and crimson, and from these shades 
into the darker reds; but all fine, clear, shining colors. And we 
had bloom in quantity. Some of the plants bore as many as two 
dozen flowers—pretty good for a first attempt. 
The percentage of doubles was satisfactory. 1 do not myself 
think that the double Tree-Peonies have as much beauty as the 
singles or semi-doubles, hence my seed saved at home was 
probably saved mostly from single and semi-double sorts. These 
in turn may have been seedlings of double varieties in their 
history or may, at least, have had the blood of doubles in them, 
and I should imagine that the percentage of doubles ran about 
the same as among the plants from which my seed was gathered. 
Only the Best Is Good Enough 
I F ONE is to have success in raising Tree-Peonies it is abso¬ 
lutely essential to start with well-selected seed. There is a 
legend current among Peony growers relating to seedling Herba¬ 
ceous Peonies that one can only expect a few plants, say four or 
