Title: American homes and gardens
Identifier: americanhomesgar91912newy (find matches)
Year: 1905 (1900s)
Authors:
Subjects: Architecture, Domestic; Landscape gardening
Publisher: New York : Munn and Co
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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A Peony of the Rose variety beautiful plants is in keeping with the care we give to them and the curb to our impatience to see everything we plant rushing into a riot of bloom. Again, if the Peonies you plant this September should blossom next season with but an indifferent quality of flowering, do not feel that you have been deceived in your hopes, for Peonies have a trick of not putting their best bloom foremost until they are quite ready to dazzle the garden world. Many plants that pro- duce poor flowers the first season come forward the third with a luxurious wealth of color, a glad surprise to the garden-maker whose faith has not remained unshaken in the traditions of the plant. Probably the desire to have varieties not to be found in our neighbor's garden often leads one into mistakes in selecting varieties for planting. It would be far better to try to learn what varieties are best suited to the section of the country where one's garden is located than to experi- ment, at least without asking competent advice on the sub- ject. There may, for instance, be certain varieties that would prove themselves to be prolific bloomers in Penn- sylvania, but which might produce but a scant number of blossoms in New England or in the Middle West. For- tunately, however, the garden-maker will find it quite safe to take the advice of reliable nurserymen on this subject, and the garden-beginner lacking experience in the matter could scarcely do better than to decide, in a general way, the main characteristics, such as color, form and fragrance of the Peonies he desires for planting, leaving the selection of exact varieties to the nurseryman who supplies his need. A careful study of the Peony catalogues will be both profit- able and interesting, and one can learn much therefrom, as the modern catalogue has come to be almost a condensed horticultural handbook of plant varieties. One might also bear in mind that a neighbor's garden, without a word from the neighbor himself, as a record of his plants should not be taken as an infallible guide, for the reason of the extraor- dinary way Peonies now and then have of defying the sea-
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Few hardy perennials can compete with the loveliness of the herbaceous Peonies blooming in profusion

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