University of Michigan runners blitz campus peony garden, prepare hundreds of plants for winter

Tens of thousands of visitors flood the University of Michigan campus each spring to catch a glimpse — and a whiff — of one of North America's premier collections of herbaceous peonies.

Four months later, members of the men's and women's cross country teams pulverize the showy perennials.

The Wolverine runners volunteer each autumn to cut down and clear out the historic W.E. Upjohn Peony Garden at the Ann Arbor school. The peonies are at their glorious peak in May and June, when so many visitors descend on the garden that they have to be bused in.

The Upjohn Garden contains hundreds of historic cultivated varieties from the 19th and early 20th centuries, representing Asian, European and North American peonies of the era. At peak bloom, the garden typically features 10,000 flowers.

But in the fall, they are in a dormancy phase, said Olivia Liebing-Slater, collections horticulturist at Nichols Arboretum, which is home to the Peony Garden.

The annual cleanup prepares the nearly 800 historic peony plants for winter, so they can bloom spectacularly the following spring.

It only took them about an hour on Sunday.

"I definitely think this builds a lot of teamwork and togetherness, relying on each other," said Penelopea Gordon, a women's cross country team member and graduate student from Rochester, Minnesota. "'You got this part, I got this part.' So, it's a lot of good camaraderie and team bonding for sure."

It was Gordon's fourth peony-pruning outing.

"We're very appreciative here for what this cross country team does. It's actually something that we put on our calendar months in advance and look forward to it," Liebing-Slater said. "It's a lot of energy having a team running around and working together so well. And it's also just something that it sets us up for the success that we need in the spring."

"We need to cut all of these leaves down, the foliage, so that we can be ready for spring," she said. "Cutting it down also helps reduce any disease that carries over, so it's really important for the health, too."

The effort is the brainchild of longtime women's cross country coach Mike McGuire, who has been running through the Arb since he was a Michigan student in the 1970s.

"We heard the story that it would take the staff quite a while to do it, because they didn't have this army of people that we have. And so, we were able to do something that maybe took them a week, and we could knock it off in 90 minutes with the army that we have," said McGuire, who actually underestimated the teams' output.

Kenny Champ, a freshman runner from Barrie, Ontario, got his first experience.

His specialty was picking up armfuls of cut-back peonies and other debris and tossing them in the back of a waiting truck.

"I was just trying to collect as many as I can, try to beat my previous one," he said.

As for Gordon, who is in her final year running for Michigan, it's all about preparation.

"It's that much more meaningful when we get to clean it up and get it ready for the wintertime, and then it can have its beautiful spring bloom," she said.