Kelways are the U.K.'s largest growers of peony, tree peony and iris. The nursery was founded in 1851 by
James Kelway and has gained an international reputation.
Over 500 varieties of herbaceous peony are grown on the nursery, including most of the Victorian varieties for which the Kelway family achieved worldwide renown and introductions of the great French breeders of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Added to these are a selection of the very best of later hybrid introductions in the Western world and of Chinese imports.
[From
The Book of Tree Peonies, by Gian Lupo Osti, p. 22:] In England, in Kelway's
Manual of Horticulture of 1897, twenty-nine new varieties were introduced, in addition to the ten listed previously, nine varieties had won prizes at the
Royal Horticultural Society's exhibitions. Fifty varieties are listed in the
Manual as bring grown in the nursery.
