It’s an annual ritual from late spring to early August, when crowds gather from late May to early June at a Chadds Ford hillside to see thousands of peonies, writes Roger Morris for The Hunt Magazine.

It all started in 1920, when J. Franklin Styer, a young botanist, began growing peonies and more for the cut-flower market.

The Styer’s nursery along Route 1 east of the Rt. 202 intersection in Glen Mills developed through the years until it was purchased in 2002 by Urban Outfitters, turning the nursery into the upscale Terrain garden center and café.

But a separate operation, Styer’s Peonies, continues to grow flowers in Chadds Ford, Maryland and New York’s Finger Lakes through early August, supplying cut flowers to florists around the country.

The Chadds Ford location has more than 55,000 individual peonies with more than 200 different varieties.

Richard Currie is Styer’s florist-in-chief, and had been working there since the 1990s. He bought Styer’s Peonies in 2010. ‘

“Styer’s has had peonies on this property now for 15 to 20 years,” said Bruce Mowday Jr. who handles marketing for the company. The fields and woods were once part of the old Hill Girt Farm.

Read more about Styer’s Peonies in The Hunt Magazine.