You may see them grind , trimming , mulching and planting , but the people who maintain the peony garden at Nichols Arboretum do much more than that . out front of the garden ’s centenary celebration , peony garden fellow Sarah Gizzi has been hard at employment curating a user - friendly database of the peony bed maps for this year ’s visitors .

Their first task in develop this database was compiling a comprehensive photo record for the garden . “ [ It admit ] some photos from the other 2000s , photos that I took in 2017 , photo from Julia Rose in 2018 , and a pocket-size collection of photos [ former houseman ] Darby Stipe took in 2019 , ” Gizzi said .

“ Using those and referencing our most current map from 2019 , I locomote through and pick out the most accurate photograph for each peony . Some I had to cross computer address with film from the American Peony Society – there are some peony that look very exchangeable to others . You have to look for those moment differences . ” Gizzi added .

“ I develop an unionized filing system , and that is now being used to select photos for the new peony garden website . So , that ’s the exposure side of affair … ”

The   current map   Gizzi is refer to was created in their time as a   Nature Academy intern in 2018 . “ We did n’t have any form of interactional map or on-line map of the peony garden . We only had a PDF of the bed maps and an online database that was not user - friendly,”“I want to come up with a straightaway and gentle way to see the location of specific peonies , desktop entropy , engraft dates , etc . I wanted this info to be more available to the public , and creating a GIS map was the route we took . ” Gizzi say .

A GIS , or geographical information system , is a type of database containing geographical data , combined with software tools for managing , take apart , and visualizing those data . create this elaborate map of peony information was no small task . First Gizzi had to outline each of the 27 peony beds . They then placed single point for each peony in the garden , include the tree peonies , Itoh peony , and the roses along the way to Schoolgirl ’s Glen .

“ A survey go out in 2020 that ask people what they want to find out more about in the peony garden . Some of those questions were ‘ what are the old plant in the garden ? ’ and that pep up me to produce a lean of all the oldest plant in the garden . Since it ’s the centennial , I wanted to find out if there were any 100 - year - old plant entrust . ” Gizzi answer , when asked if there were any interesting finds in their exploration of ancient peony records .

“ It was a long cognitive operation . chase after down the different maps we have , and then deciphering them . I had a lot of spreadsheet maps and one physical map from 1927 . I essentially went peony by peony and confirmed their locations in the mapping chronologically . I ended up with this lean of 46 peonies that are 100 years erstwhile and still in their original spots . There are 17 more that I would weigh 100 year old , but have been motivate around the garden over time . ” Gizzi said . “I also regain lists of sources ( peony suppliers ) . The I we ’ve gotten in the last 10 old age have all been from the same supplier . One , Faith Fenton , actually came from David Michener ’s yard – it ’s the tallest one in the garden ! ”

“ What is the reason you would move a paeony ? Is it just for aesthetics , or is there a horticultural reason ? ” asked interviewer Alyssa Abaloz . “So the only reasonableness we would move one now is to fit a theme . The bed along the north side are all themed beds – bed 11 is all Taiwanese peonies , layer 14 is all Gallic peony , and so on . In the past tense , most probable they would move peonies to make way for other higher antecedence cultivar or if a peony was in poor health . ” Gizzi speculated .

Gizzi graduated from the University of Michigan with a academic degree in Ecology , Evolution & Biodiversity in 2020 . They started as an intern at MBGNA in 2016 as the peony garden intern , maintaining that function for 3 years . After a 2 twelvemonth hiatus , Gizzi returned as the peony garden fellow . They go for to quell on the path of collections management and garden design – ideally working with peonies .

generator : mbgna.umich.edu