美国牡丹的羡慕苗圃 Peony’s Envy – 美国东北部牡丹收藏展示园

苗圃的起点

牡丹的羡慕苗圃（Peony’s Envy）位于新泽西州伯纳兹维尔的郊外，距离纽约和费城都不算远，苗圃和展示花园最早由 Kathleen Gagan 在 1997 年创办。她原本是一位语言学家，主修汉语和西班牙语，长期在跨国企业做传播顾问，回到新泽西老家之后，花了两年时间试种各种苗木，最后才挑中了牡丹这种抗鹿又耐寒的多年生植物。选它也有私人的理由——她小时候在祖母的花园里第一次见到牡丹，那份印象一直留到了现在。

田间规模与花期

现在的苗圃占地十三英亩，2021 年又并入了隔壁一块地，加上对外承租的九英亩生产田，总面积比最初扩大了一倍还多。展示花园按四条小路划分，把林地、木本、草本和交趾四类牡丹穿插排列。园区里种着五百多个不同的栽培品种，整个六周的花期里轮番开放，每种花期能维持七到二十天不等，从最早开花的林地和木本，一直接到最热闹的草本与交趾。

牡丹品类与色彩

林地牡丹是每年最先开的那一类，花型偏小、气质安静，适合林缘或半阴处。木本牡丹是枝干木质化的老桩品种，花朵硕大、单花期长，多年生长后会形成低矮的灌木状株丛。草本牡丹是大众最熟悉的那一类，每年冬季地上部分枯死，春天重新萌发，园艺品种最为丰富。交趾牡丹也叫伊藤牡丹，是草本和木本的杂交后代，兼具两者的优点，是近些年苗圃里最受园艺爱好者关注的一类。

线上销售与切花季

苗圃主要做线上生意，每年九月至次年六月向全美发货裸根牡丹，五月到六月则集中供应鲜切花。除了零售之外，苗圃每年会带苗参加全国各地的花卉展和园艺活动，把不同品种的实物带到园艺爱好者眼前。展示花园在春季开花季和秋季裸根销售季两次对公众开放，其余时间预约参观。

园艺教育与展示

苗圃主人 Kathleen 长期受邀到各地园艺组织和花园讲学，曾在 Scott 树木园、Longwood 花园、纽约 Hortus 俱乐部以及 Martha Stewart Living 秀等场合做牡丹专题讲座，目前也在美国园艺妇女俱乐部（Garden Club of America）的全国讲者名单上。除了主园之外，苗圃在新泽西 Liberty Corner 还有一片专门的切花田，用来供应婚礼和节日花艺用花。

官网:https://peonysenvy.com/

Origins of the Nursery

Peony’s Envy is a nursery and display garden set on the outskirts of Bernardsville, New Jersey, within easy reach of both New York City and Philadelphia. It was started in 1997 by Kathleen Gagan, who came to farming by way of a very different career. Trained as a linguist with working fluency in Mandarin Chinese and Spanish, she spent years as a corporate communications consultant for international firms before returning to her family’s land in New Jersey. After two years of trialing everything from bedding plants to trees, she settled on peonies for their beauty, resilience, and resistance to deer. The choice was also personal: she had first fallen for the flowers in her grandmother’s garden as a child, and that memory shaped what the nursery would become.

Acreage, Bloom Calendar, and Sequence

Today the property covers thirteen acres on site, expanded in 2021 with the purchase of a neighboring parcel. Together with nine additional acres of leased production land nearby, the total footprint is more than double what it was in the early years. The display garden is laid out as a series of winding paths that thread through woodland, tree, herbaceous, and intersectional peonies in turn. More than five hundred unique cultivars are planted across the grounds, and the entire bloom season stretches over roughly six weeks. Each cultivar carries its flowers for about seven to twenty days before passing the baton, beginning with the woodland and tree peonies, then shifting to the herbaceous and intersectional types.

Four Kinds of Peonies in the Garden

Woodland peonies are the earliest to flower each spring and are at home in part-shade or the woodland edge, with smaller, more demure blooms. Tree peonies are woody-stemmed specimens that develop into low, shrub-like plants over many years and carry unusually large flowers. Herbaceous peonies are the kind most gardeners picture first: their stems die back each winter and re-sprout in spring, and the breeding work here has produced the widest range of colors and forms. Intersectional peonies — also called Itoh peonies — are hybrids between herbaceous and tree peonies and combine the best traits of both groups; they have become one of the most sought-after categories among visitors in recent seasons.

Mail-Order Roots and Cut-Flower Season

Peony’s Envy runs primarily as a mail-order business, shipping bare-root peonies nationwide from September through June and shipping fresh-cut peony flowers from May through June. In support of horticulture more broadly, the nursery also exhibits at flower shows and horticultural events across the country throughout the year. The Bernardsville display garden opens to the public twice a year — in spring for the bloom season and again in fall for bare-root sales — with visits outside those windows available by appointment.

Lectures, Workshops, and the Display Garden

Kathleen Gagan gives lectures and runs workshops on peonies both at the display garden and around the country. She has spoken at the Scott Arboretum Hardy Plant Conference, Longwood Gardens, the Hortus Club of New York, and the Martha Stewart Living Show, and she currently sits on the Garden Club of America’s national speaker list. In addition to the Bernardsville property, the nursery operates a separate cut-flower field in Liberty Corner, New Jersey, which supplies peony stems for weddings and seasonal floral design work.

Official Site:https://peonysenvy.com/