See decades of the rare flowers in this 100-year-old Michigan peony garden

A photo of the peony garden in the Nichols Arboretum from the late 1920s or early 1930s. The garden was founded by pharmaceutical titan W.E. Upjohn in 1922, so these were some of the earliest blooms. Photo provided by the Matthaei Botanical Gardens.

A photo of the peony garden in the Nichols Arboretum from the late 1920s or early 1930s. The garden was founded by pharmaceutical titan W.E. Upjohn in 1922, so these were some of the earliest blooms. Photo provided by the Matthaei Botanical Gardens.

A photo of the peony garden in the Nichols Arboretum from the late 1920s or early 1930s. The garden was founded by pharmaceutical titan W.E. Upjohn in 1922, so these were some of the earliest blooms. Photo provided by the Matthaei Botanical Gardens.

Peonies blooming in the Nichols Arboretum in 1940. Photo owned by The Ann Arbor News.

An Ann Arbor News picture from 1959 showing the peony garden in the Nichols Arboretum. Photo is owned by The Ann Arbor News.

A 1988 picture of the peony garden in the Nichols Arboretum. The garden was kept alive prior to higher University of Michigan involvement in the early 2000s by interested university officials and local Ann Arbor residents. Photo provided through the Creative Commons at the Ann Arbor District Library.

Scott Dubois, of Jackson, walks through the peony garden at Nichols Arboretum on Monday afternoon in 2009. "I do this every day at lunchtime," said Dubois, who works at a nearby construction site. BPN

We’ll deliver breaking news directly to your inbox. Sign up today.

By

ANN ARBOR, MI - For 100 years, one of the world’s foremost collection of rare peonies has been in Ann Arbor within the Nichols Arboretum, also known as “the Arb.”

The W.E. Upjohn Peony Garden, named for its original 1922 benefactor, contains 230 different varieties of the peony plant, including the more-common herbaceous and the rarer and larger tree varieties. It is now North America’s largest collection of heirloom and antique peonies.

More than half of the varieties, which originated in North America, Asia and Europe, are no longer commercially available, according to University of Michigan. The rarity of the flowers is matched by the rarity of the historical photos of the garden, which span the decades from the late 1920s to today.

The earliest photos, held at UM’s Bentley Historical Library, depict the garden in its original design in the late 1920s and early 1930s

Despite the Great Depression and World War II shifting the university’s focus from the garden over the next two decades, the peony flowers persisted and bloomed nonetheless. A photo from 1940 shows the full bloom of a white peony flower, while a 1959 article in The Ann Arbor News features a photo of the garden still thriving three decades after its inception.

A gap in pictures exists during the 1960s and 70s, coinciding with a lull in university interest in the garden, said the garden’s curator David Michener. A photo from the 1980s is from a time when local flower enthusiasts from the Women’s National Farm and Garden Association and the Brook Lodge started a rejuvenation project for the garden.

By the 1990s and 2000s, university leadership started increasing involvement in the preservation of the garden, helping make it an annual public attraction. Today, about 10,000 peonies bloom each spring in the garden, acting as a beacon to Ann Arbor residents that winter is a thing of the past.

During its Thursday, May 19 meeting, the University of Michigan Board of Regents approved naming the garden after Upjohn. His family donated $2 million to UM to ensure the “peonies bloom for generations to come,” said UM Vice President of Development Tom Baird during the meeting.

See the history of the Upjohn Peony Garden for yourself in this gallery of historical photos.

Read more from MLive:

It took persistent plants and people to help this Michigan peony garden survive 100 years

100 years in bloom: Peony garden’s historic anniversary comes with multiple events

Pee-cycled fertilizer to help peonies pop at Nichols Arboretum

If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.

X

Opt out of the sale or sharing of personal information

If you opt out, we won’t sell or share your personal information to inform the ads you see. You may still see interest-based ads if your information is sold or shared by other companies or was sold or shared previously.