history continued

With the financial support of his wife, Gratwick undertook a wide-range of activities, from sculpture and filmmaking to animal husbandry and horticulture. Gratwick also pursued A. P. Saunders’ idea to cross Korean and colonial boxwood to create a boxwood that could survive the winter in western New York. At the time, Saunders was pursuing his own groundbreaking experiments with crossing peonies. After Gratwick succeeded in his boxwood cross (evidence of which has become an impressive feature of the gardens), Saunders invited Gratwick to work with him on propagating new tree peony hybrids through grafting techniques. Saunders and Gratwick’s informal partnership lasted twenty years, until Saunders’ death.

In 1938, Gatwick and his wife invited the young artist Nassos Daphnis to visit Linwood in order to paint the tree peonies in their experimental beds. Up to that point, Daphnis’ horticultural experience was limited to a bit of grafting done when he was a child in Greece. Within several years of his initial visit to Linwood, Daphnis became interested in hybridizing tree peonies as well. After his discharge from the United States Army following World War II, Daphnis became Gratwick’s new partner and continued hybridizing tree peonies for more than sixty years.