Shortly before Memorial Day, the tree peony ‘Joseph Rock’ unfurls its frilly, fragrant blossoms alongside the patio in Roy and Sarah Klehm’s garden in South Barrington. The flowers — white with purple flares — surround a whirl of curly gold stamens. “When it blooms, I don’t like to leave home,” Roy Klehm says. “Tree peonies are the kind of garden plant that gets better with age.”
There are plenty of other reasons not to leave their 12-acre garden, which surrounds an 1850s-era farm-house and barn. It’s a collection of some of the most unusual and little-known trees, shrubs and perennials, all casually arranged in a series of sweeping beds and borders across the gently rolling landscape.
Packed with nearly 4,000 cultivars from small bulbs in spring to hostas, day-lilies, magnolias, witch hazels, crabapples, martagon lilies, chartreuse-leaved smokebushes, lacy elderberry bushes, weeping evergreens, buckeyes, dog-woods, redbuds, woody tree peonies, rock garden peonies and old-fashioned herbaceous peonies, the garden serves as a testing ground for new hybrids, many of which Roy Klehm has selected or bred.
It may take five to seven years before a peony grown from seed is large enough to bloom. “What I hybridize this year will bloom in 2012,” Klehm says. “It takes about 25 years to get it into the marketplace.”
Here, where each plant is a specimen, the experience of walking this garden is like strolling through a coral reef. Each plant is evaluated for hardiness, form, flowers, shape and other characteristics that would make it a desirable garden addition. You won’t find big drifts of any one plant but the setting and the striking plants would make most avid gardeners drool.
“It’s not a landscaped garden,” Sarah Klehm says, “but that’s not his purpose.” The garden serves as a U.S. Department of Agriculture test station, a proving ground for countless scores of hybridized or selected ornamental plants that may eventually make their way to garden centers and mail-order catalogs.
A garden’s evolution
The garden has slowly developed since 1965 when the couple moved in and began raising three children. A majestic horse chestnut, planted by Klehm about 35 years ago, greets visitors along the driveway. “This is one of the best trees in winter,” he says. “Its large sticky buds hold the promise of spring.”
An old cascading Camperdown elm tree graces the steps near the patio. Thuja plicata `Deer Proof,’ a giant Western red cedar, towers over the barn where more than 280 plants, mostly dwarf compact rock garden peonies, hybridized by Klehm, burst into bloom in late May.
There’s the Fat Albert garden, where the wider-than-tall blue spruce `Fat Albert’ holds court, surrounded by peonies. There’s Acer campestre `Carnival’, a rare form of English hedge maple. In a sunny bed, Sedum`Queen Bee’ is paired with the yellow-flowered Baptisia `Carolina Moonlight.’
Tall, elegant and shade-tolerant martagon lilies are scattered in groups under large trees. A contorted larch, an upright narrow English oak, a double-flowered horse chestnut, tricolored phlox, weeping Serbian spruce and exotic dogwoods are just a few of the more unusual specimens that anchor planting beds.
Klehm plans each new bed in his head, not on paper. “Design?” he asks with a chuckle. “I do it the way I want to and I don’t worry about what people think.”
Some things that grow gangbusters in their garden just don’t make it in the open nursery. “Acer griseum [paperbark maple] can grow in the suburbs but not in the fields,” Klehm says.
A family affair
Plant management comes naturally to the 62-year-old Klehm, a fourth-generation nurseryman. His great-grandfather grew fruit trees and evergreens for the Christmas trade in the 1850s. His grandfather was a founder of the American Peony Society in 1903 and his father grew more than 250 varieties of peonies. By age 11, Roy was hybridizing his own peonies.
After graduating from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaignwith a bachelor’s degree in horticulture, Klehm worked at Klehm Nursery, his family’s business. He opened Beaver Creek Nursery, a wholesale nursery in Poplar Grove in 1988 and Song Sparrow Perennial Farm and Nursery, a mail-order nursery in Avalon, Wis., in 1996; Sarah runs Song Sparrow.
A world-renowned peony expert, Klehm has introduced several hundred new peonies into the trade along with scores of daylilies, hostas and many woody plants. A bowl of his peonies graces the cover of the May issue of Martha Stewart Living magazine. And Stewart, one of his fans, recently ordered several hundred of his peony plants to use as cut flowers in her garden.
Nurseryman Platt Hill has known Klehm for more than 25 years and carries Klehm’s peonies at his Platt Hill Nursery in Carpentersville and in Bloomingdale. “He’s an exceptional plant breeder and horticulturist,” Hill says. Upon touring Klehm’s nursery and seeing his hybridization efforts, Hill says, “It was one of the most impressive sites from a horticultural standpoint. To see all of his peonies and daylilies in bloom in all their splendor was spectacular.”
Song Sparrow’s 105-page catalog (www.songsparrow.com) boasts 118 herbaceous or “old-fashioned” peonies, from Abalone Pearl to Zuzu, and nearly 50 tree peonies, which have woody stems. Aimed at discriminating gardeners who are looking for something different, the nursery offers more than 45 clematis, 75 daylilies, 14 magnolias and an assortment of unusual shrubs, perennials, trees and ground covers.
Although the nursery is not open to the public, it occasionally schedules group visits. After touring the gardens in 2003, Patricia Bailey of Palos Park purchased Geisha, Blue Betty Lou, Praying Hands and Thunderbolt hostas to add to her collection of 200 varieties. “I was amazed at the size of their collection,” Bailey says. “They seemed to have anything you wanted in the various hosta color ranges.”
“We try to specialize in certain genera-gingko, witch hazel, fothergilla, hardy boxwood and others,” Klehm says. Many plants come from amateur hybridizers and are credited in the catalog’s plant descriptions. Others come from walking through the nurseries.
“Good plants will grab you around the ankles,” Klehm says. “You have to be awake. If you’re walking through a field with 1,000 seedlings [of the same plant], you have to look for the one that’s unique.”
Klehm named one of his peony hybrids, `Carl G. Klehm,’ to honor his father. `Moon over Barrington’ and `Crinkled Linens’ are just a few of the hundreds of peonies he has created over the past 40 years.
A board member of the American Peony Society from 1968 to 2004, he has received numerous awards for his plant introductions, including the society’s gold medal in 2000 for his peony `Pink Hawaiian Coral,’ which produces a coral semi-double, rose-shaped flower.
The American Horticultural Society this year awarded him with a Great American Gardeners award for his significant contributions in commercial horticulture.
When they are not working 60-plus hours each week or traveling overseas to visit gardens, the Klehms make time to enjoy their plants and their grandchildren. Two of their three adult children, Kit Klehm and Nance Klehm, have followed into the green industry.
“I’m not good at sitting,” Sarah says. “There’s so much that needs to be done.” She is creating a database of the garden’s plants with details of all the beds.
“A lot of my work is experimental and I do it here to learn,” Roy says. “When we were young raising kids, dogs and goats, we didn’t have time to garden, but now it’s a place for enjoyment and learning how things grow.”
To learn more about peonies, contact the American Peony Society, 713 White Oak Lane, Gladstone, MO 64116-9386; 816-459-9386, or visit www.americanpeonysociety.org. Membership is $15 per year and includes four issues of The American Peony Society Bulletin and participation in their seed distribution program.
5 FAVORITES
1. PEONY: The herbaceous peony has been a favorite in whites and pinks, but the coral-colored ones, such as ‘Coral Charm’ (left), are very popular now.
2. TREE PEONY: These woody peonies don’t die to the ground so they add winter interest. They come in many colors, but pearls and ivories are on the rise.
3. HOSTA: New hostas are introduced each year. Hot newcomers: ‘Red October’ (red stems, blue flowers) and ‘Fire Island’ (yellow leaves).
4. DAYLILY: Daylilies come in vibrant hues but it’s the soft colors — soft blush and pink — that are especially popular right now.
5. CLEMATIS: Many of the new Polish varieties, such as ‘Blue Angel’ (left), do well in the Chicago area because the climate in Poland is so similar to ours.
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Advice from The Collector
Roy Klehm shares these tips for creating a special garden:
Carpet the beds. Masses of blue-flowered squill, which will slowly naturalize, are planted throughout the beds for spring color.
Adapt. As some trees grow larger, the peonies will need transplanting to sunnier spots.
Adopt self-sowers. “I love hollyhocks and let them grow all over the garden. They’re everywhere. The same with sunflowers. I grow them for the grandchildren and wildlife.”
Invite feathered friends. “I like birds and have a lot of wren houses. That’s one of the joys of gardening.”
Live and learn. “If something dies, I try to make it a learning experience.”
— Nina Koziol
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