history continued

Tree peonies are the “prima donnas” of propagation. It takes an average of ten years for a peony to flower from seed and longer to determine whether a new cross is worth propagating. Many second-generation hybrids are sterile; Daphnis worked indefatigably with the few that he and Saunders had developed that were viable and produced beautiful new hybrids that were seven-eighths Paeonia suffruticosa (Chinese, mostly rose pink or white) and one-eighth Paeonia lutea (Tibetan, yellow).

During the 1960s and 1970s, the Gratwick Tree Peony Nursery grafted and sold tree peonies worldwide. Its customers included the Dali Lama; the Royal Botanical Gardens in Edinburgh; the Royal Ontario Museum in Canada; Cornell Plantations at Cornell University; and Winterthur, the du Pont estate in Delaware. When W. H. Gratwick III died in 1988, his daughter, Lee Gratwick, assumed the management of the property, which is owned by Gratwick Family Preservation Trust and listed in the National Register of Historic Places. At the time of Gratwick’s death, the gardens and the summer house were in a state of decline. The house had been damaged by fire, and walnut saplings, poke weed, and burdock obscured the design of the formal garden.