Burp(ee)?

It was very profitable for a private entity. But as all business purchases there is the price of purchase to subtract from the bottom line. Therefore not profitable. Anyone who starts a business suffers a long time to make it profitable. Possibly people commenting on the fault lying on the sholders of Dan and Bob have never owned a business and don't know what kind of energy it takes to "grow" a business. Not to mention the delayed gratification of accumulation of assets to keep the business interesting. Even George Washington was tired of being Father of our Country. He had to leave the growth of our country in other hands to get a private life and a few moments of peace.

i stand corrected, then. I thought it was losing money, but of course, that would only be 'on paper'. I can't imagine owning a business like that. It would have to be your whole life. The only way to move on from it would be to sell it, and there are not many private parties who could come up with the right amount of money to buy a place like that. I don't blame Dan for selling. I'm sure it was a very difficult choice for him, as anyone who has built any kind of a garden would realize. I wish he had some recourse in terms of the contract between them. If you sell with a certain understanding, and then the buyer goes back on their word, it would be nice to at least have the right of first refusal. I'm sure the contractual language left the buyer an 'out'.

Could somebody d-mail me for my email address and then send Tony Avent's comments regarding Herronswood to me? Sorry, this requires such convoluted attention, but I would love to see them and doubt there is any other way to get them. Thanks.

Scott

Me too, please.

Here's another recent local article from a small newspaper. I love the last comment in the article.
"This will be the best of both worlds,” Ball said. “We’re not moving away from the Pacific Northwest, we’re moving to Pennsylvania."

Excuse me? Do I know my geography? Well, maybe Maine is further away.

Tony Avent gave me permission to post the e-mail he sent yesterday (or the day before) - here it is:

Greetings PDN'ers:

Most of you have probably heard by now about the closing of Heronswood
Nursery in Kingston,
Washington. Heronswood was one of those very special nurseries that
comes around only once
in a lifetime and we are all lucky to have been able to partake of the
horticultural treasures that
Heronswood made available.

Heronswood fans have reacted with anger, not just at the loss of such a
special nursery, but at the
poor way in which the closing was handled. Nursery faithful were left
with no chance to say
goodbye, or to visit and purchase plants for one last time. At this
time, I'd like to take a few
moments to reflect on Heronswood, Burpee, and mail-order in general, and
of course, how it
relates to us here at Plant Delights.

The closing of Heronswood is a terrible loss for horticulture, but not
one that was unexpected...at
least by anyone who studies horticultural businesses. All the signs
were there. In 2005, the first
color catalog appeared, but instead of a full plant listing, only a few
hundred plants were
chosen that followed no rhyme, reason, or price point strategy. In
2006, Burpee discontinued the
main catalog to save money...in spite of the fact that this was the main
source of income. The
scant selection of plants for the 2006 color catalog were even more
bizarre, being obviously
selected by a catalog designer with no plant knowledge. The website,
was also outsourced to India
and not only appeared 3 weeks late in a crucial January season, but the
re-designed "artsy" site
was so bizarrely unfunctional that even web veterans couldn't make sense
of it. Anyone who
didn't see the end coming was looking through rose-colored glasses.

Heronswood and Plant Delights lived their horticultural lives as
"sister" nurseries on opposite
coasts. Dan and Robert purchased their property in 1987 and we
purchased ours in 1988. We
both began with on-site sales and both began mail-order in 1991. The
set-up of our operations,
including a botanic garden to test and display plants were amazingly
similar. Over the years,
Dan and I have been fortunate to travel together on month-long plant
expeditions and have
visited each others operations many times. It is rare that two
businesses would
have such a parallel development, but this undoubtedly lead to our
long-term friendship.

Both Heronswood and Plant Delights specialized in unusual plants,
Heronswood focusing more
on wild seed-grown woody plants and some perennials, while our focus was
on perennials, with an
emphasis on selected forms. Our catalog offerings also reflected our
differing climates. While
we probably killed as many Heronswood plants as anyone, that never
stopped us from ordering
with the hopes of finding a percentage of the plants that would enjoy
our more hot, humid
climate.

We both used humor as an important tool in our catalogs, although our
writing styles were
dramatically different (esoteric vs. redneck). Our catalogs also
evolved differently, with PDN
opting for color photos and a smaller number of offerings in the printed
catalog, while the
Heronswood catalog became a veritable literary encyclopedia with over
2500 listings.

We both also wanted to create businesses that would engage a personal
connection with our
customers. When successfully done, this creates a very loyal base of
customers, but the down
side is that it makes the loss of a nursery like Heronswood like losing
a friend, or in our case a
sibling. Since we fully expected that this would be the last year for
Heronswood, we spent
several days at Heronswood last June (2005), lecturing for one of their
wonderful garden
seminars, purchasing an obscene array of plants, and saying what proved
to be our goodbye to the
wonderful Heronistas (Heronswood Staff).

Our two nurseries were almost identical size in June 2000, when George
C. Ball of the Burpee
Holding Co. purchased Heronswood. Around the same time, George also
purchased the remains
(URL and mailing list) of the defunct Garden.com in January 2001 for the
reportedly absurdly high price of
$2.4 million). Burpee had also built 4 mega-garden centers in
1999/2000, which were all out of
business by the following year. By September 2001, it became obvious
that George had
overextended himself, when the Burpee Holding Company filed for Chapter
11 bankruptcy.

So, who is this George C. Ball? The story starts with George J. Ball, a
pioneer in commercial
horticulture. The George J. Ball Corporation was an umbrella
corporation that eventually
included several companies such as Ball Seed, Pam American Seed Co.,
Ball Flora Plant, Ball
Publishing, and Burpee. The company was started by George C.'s
grandfather, George J. Ball.
George J. had 4 sons who took over the business in 1949 when George J.
Ball died. One by one,
the four brothers died or went in different directions. The remaining
brother Carl, eventually
retired in the mid-1990's and divided the company among his three
children, George C. Ball, his
brother Dexter, and his sister Anna.

The George J. Ball Corporation was split among the siblings with Anna
getting Ball Seed, Pam
American and Ball Flora Plant, which she ran under the umbrella
corporation, Ball Horticulture.
Dexter took a buyout, while George C. formed a separate company that
included Ball
Publishing and Burpee, which George J. Ball Corporation had originally
purchased in 1991.
George ran Ball Publishing a short time, but then sold it back to his
sister, Anna.

George continues today as President of Burpee and as outlined earlier,
also went on to
pursue other less successful ventures under the umbrella of the Burpee
Holding Company
(no business relation to Anna's Ball Horticulture). With the failed garden centers, the story goes that George poured huge amounts of money into
each garden center,
which in turn lost huge amounts of money. George then showed up himself
to fire the staff and
lock the doors. Sound familiar?

Many of us questioned the motive of the Heronswood purchase, since it
was clear that the
purchase was not good from a business investment perspective. For the
price that Burpee paid
for Heronswood, and the expected yearly cash flow, the payback of
principle would have
neared a human lifetime. There is no banker in the world that would
rate this as a good
investment for financial return.

So, why did Burpee purchase Heronswood? We can only speculate, but this
is not the first large
corporation to buyout a smaller nursery. Most of these buyouts have
not proven profitable for
the larger profit-minded corporation and have been maintained only as a
five-year tax loss write-off.
I have never met George Ball and have not spoken to him regarding the
Heronswood purchase. I
know that Burpee had laid out grandiose plans for Heronswood at the time
of the purchase. The
plan included a 20-acre production facility, a tissue culture lab, and
much more. The
Heronswood gene pool certainly had a value for the Burpee breeding
program, but of more
interest was probably the position that Heronswood Nursery held within
the nursery industry.
Heronswood was constantly featured in magazine articles and television
shows. Dan and Martha
Stewart were good friends and purchasing Heronswood no doubt meant some
access to that
world for Burpee

Having closely followed the Heronswood deal from the beginning, I have
no question that both
parties made the deal with the best of intentions, but as we all know,
not all relationships work
out. Granted, divorce is usually a better option than the more
aggressive spouse killing off the
weaker one, but unfortunately, this relationship didn't live up to
expectations and the results led to
a very messy ending.

I have read newspaper reports that indicate that Heronswood will re-open
for mail-order on the
East Coast. Yes, and I've got some well-draining swampland in Florida
for sale. None of us
know for sure what will happen with their nursery stock or even the
nursery display gardens.
None of us know if Dan and Robert will start a new nursery venture. I
expect they don't even
know at this point if another nursery is in the cards. At least, the
type of non-compete
agreements in place have generally been ruled void by the courts. I
think it would be great if the
City of Kingston would purchase the gardens and open them as a public
garden. Better yet,
George Ball could recover a bit of good will if he donated the property
to the town of Kingston.
If you never visited Heronswood, you missed out on one of the truly
special botanic gardens in
the country.

What would have happened if Heronswood had not sold to Burpee? No one
knows. What I can
tell you is that most mail order nurseries have a life expectancy of
10-15 years. I can count on
one hand those that have lasted longer than this under the same
ownership. I'm talking about
when a mail-order nursery is run as a business (a industry standard
salary paid to the owner) as
opposed to a hobby mail-order nursery. Why is this the case? In
reality, it is a combination of
factors, from mental stress to fiscal stress. While it may seem hard to
believe, it is very difficult
for a mail-order nursery to be profitable. Remember, I'm talking about
those run as a business
with real business overhead. Some of the largest mail-order nurseries
in the country are suffering
mightily and one came within days of being closed quite recently.

Could Heronswood be purchased and run as a mail order nursery again?
The answer is no... if
you actually wanted to make money. Burpee purchased Heronswood for far
more than it was
worth. After the purchase, Heronswood sales began a gradual decline
that continued through this year.
This decline in sales made the nursery worth dramatically less than when
it was originally
purchased by Burpee. During the same time, the value of the nursery
land has dramatically
increased in value. Today, the land is worth several times what the
nursery is worth. You can
see why purchasing the existing site and running Heronswood as a nursery
again doesn't make
financial sense.

What's the lesson here? If you have a favorite nursery, patronize it.
Are you one of those sitting
there wishing you had sent in your Heronswood order earlier? Lesson
learned...if you see a
special plant at a mail-order nursery, don't wait because tomorrow may
be too late.

So, is Plant Delights planning to go anywhere or sell out? The answer
is emphatically, No. At
least, the answer today is No. We are in our 16th year in mail order
and we have indeed reached
the typical life expectancy of our type of business. One of the things
that make us a bit different
is that we love the business part of running a nursery as much as we do
the plants. None of us
know what tomorrow will bring and one day, our time will come, but it is
our sincere hope to be
around for quite a while. Thanks again for your support and best wishes
to Dan and Robert in their next venture.

-tony


--
Tony Avent
Plant Delights Nursery @
Juniper Level Botanic Garden
9241 Sauls Road
Raleigh, North Carolina 27603 USA
Minimum Winter Temps 0-5 F
Maximum Summer Temps 95-105F
USDA Hardiness Zone 7b
email tony@plantdelights.com
website http://www.plantdelights.com
phone 919 772-4794
fax 919 772-4752
"I consider every plant hardy until I have killed it myself...at least three times" - Avent

Thank you for providing that for us Sue_WA and thanks to Tony for allowing it. I live close to Plant Delights and it is MY Heronswood. Glad to hear news from there.

that was a very nice email. It certainly fleshes out some details. I'll have to do some shopping at Plant Delights.
Here is a link to the local Kingston newspaper. www.kitsapsun.com You have to register to use the site, but they won't spam you or sell your name to others. The local reaction to the closing is in this paper, along with the reaction of some of the heronistas. I was glad to hear that they were offered severance packages. That will help pay the bills until they find other jobs.

The only thing about the email from plant delights that is frustrating to me is that it may not have been a shock to those in the horitcultural business that Heronswood was closed. His reasoning is certainly transparent. But those of us who are not in that business were really taken by surprise. If I had known, I would have purchased many more plants the last time I was there.
On the other hand, the main reason I left with fewer plants than I had planned is that they were sold out of everything.

I am glad I wasn't the only one who believed the reasoning to be rather transparent.

Nonetheless, very glad to hear the employees received severance packages.

I wonder what has happened to the nursery stock? I for one, would have wished that I knew they were closing. I had a long list of plants to order, but decided to just "wait till next year". Alas. This is so similar to the unexpected death of a friend or family member.

Yes, I would have bought twice the number of hydrangeas I did. Again, I had a long list of 'wanted' plants, only to find almost all of them were sold out. They had a staging area full of tables loaded down with mail order plants to be packed.

So if George Ball doesn't have anything to do with Ball Hort or PanAmerican seed....then why are they doing a restructuring and people are losing their jobs there??

A New York Times link.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/08/garden/08military.html?pagewanted=all


Ric

Your link isn't working. We're you trying to link to the article Mr. Ball submitted titled "Border Wars" in which he shared his views on invasive plants?

Here's the NY Times article.

New Urbanism: It's in the Army Now
E-MailPrint Reprints Save

By WILLIAM L. HAMILTON
Published: June 8, 2006
ON May 30, the Heronswood Nursery gardens in Kingston, Wash., the horticultural paradise that Daniel J. Hinkley and Robert Jones started 19 years ago with a single truckload of rare plants — which eventually grew into a collection that would change the face of American gardening — were closed by W. Atlee Burpee & Company, the nursery's corporate owner.

Mr. Hinkley said in a telephone interview that George Ball, Burpee's C.E.O., and three of his staff members came that day from Burpee's Pennsylvania properties to dismiss Mr. Hinkley and most of the nursery's 24 employees. He and Mr. Jones, who was retained until the end of June as a consultant, said they spent most of that Tuesday afternoon comforting distraught employees at the home they share in nearby Indianola, Wash. (Although it is perhaps surprising that Mr. Jones should stay on, even for a few days, he said it was in the interest of Heronswood and all concerned that he do so.)

Mr. Hinkley said that there had been early signs of trouble after Burpee bought Heronswood six years ago, but that the nursery had continued to operate pretty much as it had. Still, he said, he and Mr. Jones spent "six years waiting for the crash you know is coming."

Mr. Ball said the move is a business matter. "We are moving the nursery, not closing it, because it was losing money," he said by phone on Saturday from Fordhook Farm, the Burpee homestead and testing grounds, in Doylestown, Pa., where 1,000 of Heronswood's 6,000 plants had been moved over the past few years. Thousands of others will be moved to a 50-acre site in Willow Hill, Pa., and a 30-acre site in Selbyville, Del.

Thomas C. Cooper, the former longtime editor of Horticulture magazine, who has known Mr. Hinkley and Mr. Jones for years, said he sees Burpee's decision as a mistake. "This is not a brand like Tide, where you can swap out C.E.O.'s and move corporate headquarters and the brand goes on," he said. "There is no Heronswood without Dan and Robert."

It is an increasingly familiar story, in this industry and others: a small specialty nursery known for unique plants is bought by a larger company hoping to take advantage of its cutting-edge appeal and to get new plants for mass marketing. What ensues is invariably a loss of diversity — as the new owner narrows the selection of plants, choosing mainly those it thinks will have mass appeal — and, often, a loss of the vision that made the nursery attractive to begin with.

For example, in 1993, Shepherd and Ellen Ogden sold Cook's Garden, a mail-order house in Londonderry, Vt., known for the seeds the couple found in Europe, to the Park Seed Company, a larger mail-order house in Greenwood, S.C., which later sold Cook's Garden to Burpee. Cook's Garden has gradually lost its ahead-of-the-curve reputation. And in 1988, Renee Shepherd sold Shepherd's Garden Seeds, a small mail-order nursery in Felton, Calif., with unusual vegetable and flower seeds, to White Flower Farm, a much larger mail-order nursery in Litchfield, Conn., which eventually abandoned the line as a losing proposition. She later started a new mail-order seed business, reneesgarden.com.

Heronswood, with its lushly planted grounds, was a magnet for serious garden people. "It was like visiting the Holy Grail," said Deborah Nevins, a New York garden designer. And it was very influential.

Mr. Hinkley and Mr. Jones "refashioned American horticulture," said Wayne Winterrowd, a garden designer in Readsboro, Vt., who, with his partner, Joe Eck, created the famous five-acre North Hill garden in Readsboro. "There are so many plants here that simply never grew in America, or England either, until Dan collected the seed."

The Heronswood catalog, a 250-page list of thousands of plants with cliffhanging reports of Mr. Hinkley's latest plant-collecting adventures in the Himalayas or South America, had a huge cult following. "His experience was so fascinating and real, like reading Julia Child's," Ms. Nevins said.

The catalog was replaced this year by a glossy 75-page version with a list of about 200 plants and devoid of Mr. Hinkley's voice. (Mr. Ball says that next year's catalog will have about 300 plants, and be supplemented by a listing of an additional 1,500 online.)

Mr. Ball defends Burpee's plan for Heronswood. The move, he said, will let Burpee test plants outside the balmy Northwest, which is "too far away" from Burpee's corporate headquarters. "Fulfilling orders and shipping from the other side of Puget Sound," Mr. Ball said, is inefficient.

More important, he added, many of the plants are not well suited to gardens in the Midwest and Northeast. (Not everyone agrees: "Our garden is full of Heronswood plants," Mr. Winterrowd said, "and so are the gardens of our clients, from Louisville, Ky., to Hanover, N.H.")

The bottom line is money. Burpee bought Heronswood for close to $4.5 million in 2000.

"It wasn't a profitable business when we bought it," Mr. Ball said. (Mr. Hinkley said he and Mr. Jones made a decent living from Heronswood, but acknowledged that at times they had to subsidize it from their own pockets to make winter payrolls.)

"But I bought it for the plants," Mr. Ball continued, "to get rare and unusual plants into mainstream gardening," with the idea that this strategy would eventually pay off.

Mr. Cooper said: "These nurseries create all the buzz and get a popularity out of proportion with their economic size. I suspect George fell in love with that dream, and thought with his marketing department he could ramp it up."

According to the deal Mr. Ball made with Heronswood's owners — which allowed them to buy a five-acre property overlooking Puget Sound — they would continue to manage the nursery, and Mr. Hinkley, the partner who had always sought out new plants around the world, would continue to do so on Burpee's dime.

But even the most aggressive marketers would have trouble mainstreaming the kinds of rarities that Heronswood specialized in. Few gardeners want a hydrangea from the Himalayas that blooms for just two weeks; most want Endless Summer, the blowsy pink mophead hybrid that sold off the charts at every big box store last year.

Within six months of the Heronswood sale in 2000, Mr. Hinkley said, "the expectations changed." Burpee, having expanded quickly, would find itself in bankruptcy court the following year and was scrambling to right itself. The pressure was on to reduce the number of plants offered, Mr. Hinkley said. If the nursery sold only half a dozen of some plant, "man, it was out of there," Mr. Hinkley said. What Burpee did not seem to take into account, he said, was that "the same person who bought that one plant would buy another $200 to $300 worth of other plants."

Mr. Ball was also not a fan of the catalog. The type "was too tiny" and it read like "a textbook," and was "too niched," he said.

Business was so bad, Mr. Ball said, that in 2003, he asked the former owners to buy Heronswood back for $2 million.

"They took a day to think about it, and said no" Mr. Ball said. He added: "If they wanted to stay a regional nursery, we gave them the chance to do it."

At that point, Mr. Hinkley said, he and Mr. Jones could not afford even that price.

Now, Mr. Hinkley blames himself for being naïve. "Mea culpa," he said. "This entire set of circumstances comes down to me, and my decision was wrong."

Mr. Ball said Heronswood's gardens — 5½ acres of the garden, as distinct from the business Burpee is moving — will not be depleted even as the best specimens are taken for propagation and testing. "I would like to find some kind of buyer who would keep it open to the public," Mr. Ball said. He pictures a "high-end retirement community, with nice condos" built around the gardens on the 15-acre Heronswood property.

Mr. Hinkley agreed that the gardens should be preserved, but only if they have a purpose beyond nostalgia, such as serving as an educational resource. Otherwise, he said, "I would much rather see the garden euthanized immediately than to see it decline over several years."

The fate of the gardens is up to Mr. Ball now.



This message was edited Jun 9, 2006 11:48 AM

Strange it opens right up for me.
The article is titled 'New Urbanism' in the Home and Garden section of yesterdays (June 8) NY Times.
It's basically the story told here but w/ a few more details.

Ric

Earth to potential buyers of small, niche-based nurseries for gardening geeks: If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, guess what? IT'S A DUCK!! It's not the goose that lays golden eggs. If you buy it, you've bought a duck, not a golden egg. Don't act like it's a huge surprised when you fail to get golden eggs out of it. Ducks have a great deal of value to many people, just not in terms of gold.

The interesting part of the last article was that the Nursery was sold for 4.5 mil in 2000 and was offered back to the original owners for less than half the price three years latter. They said thanks, but no...

Everyone wants to vilify Ball because he made a bussiness deal that didn't work out. Dan and Bob sold Herronswood. They admit that they were aware of the potential consequences and they sold it anyway. 9/11 brought luxury item sales in this country to nearly a standstill. Businesses are failing all over the country. The nursery businessis in serious decline. We will see more tragedy like Herronswood in the next few years. Tony Avent has the most logical explanation. Lets hope he survives...

Places like Herronswood should be enjoyed and charished while they exist, morned when they end, and remembered for what they were. Anything else is just sour grapes...

Sour Grapes never accomplish anything but promote bad feelings. Herronswood was a wonderful experience while it lasted. Let's savor the moment and not cheapen it...

So, Let's all have a good cry and move on...


This message was edited Jun 9, 2006 4:24 PM

This message was edited Jun 9, 2006 4:24 PM

I, too, was stunned when Robert and Daniel didn't want to re-purchase Herronswood for less than half of the money they had sold it for. Maybe they were just tired, had a great opportunity for a decent retirement, and wanted to do something else. And to hear tell, the place would never be the same without Dan, Robert and the original highly trained staff.

It probably would make a great development and as much as those of us who enjoy rare plants and the woods, probably few of us would be interested in taking over Herronswood. Most of us just don't have the knowledge. Besides, two million is a lot for a nursery.

However, if there is some wealthy person out there who wants a wonderful playground and, at least self sustaining, business, I hope such a person buys it. It would be a lot of work, but it sounds like a heavenly place. Then if it didn't work out, it could always go to the developers.

Okay, I've edited this thread for the last time. You may not like or respect (indeed, you may harbor deep-seated resentment and animosity toward) the companies and individuals involved in this series of events.

However, we do insist that you that you play by the "house rules" (i.e., our Acceptable Use Policy.) We have standards spelled out in the AUP regarding content - crude and foul language has no place here, nor does deliberately obfuscated vulgarities.

If the thread requires further editing, I'm afraid I'll have to delete the entire thread.. Currently, our forums are getting somewhere around 3,500 posts a day and as an admin, I've got a lot of other tasks that also require my attention. I don't have the time to continue monitoring a thread that perisists in skating on a razor thin edge.

Sorry folks, I'm the one Terry is mad at. When I see a unique natural or horticultural gem bought up by some greedy developer for condos, I just go postal.
I'm abandoning this thread so the rest of you may continue a more civil discussion, because I probably will not be able to contain my anger and I'll wind up getting the whole thing dumped.
Guy S.

FYI, I recently read an article on Heronswood (and by the way, it has only 1 'R', just like the bird for which it is named) that quoted Dan Hinkley as saying they could not afford to buy the nursery back when it was offered. Very likely they would have had to sell the home in which they live.

In my dreams, if sold to developers, said developers will know that they have a responsiblity to salvage much of what is growing on the property. They will give out lottery numbers to interested parties, and then will draw numbers and invite people to come and dig up the plants and move them.
That's the only way that they will be saved, because the grounds are all garden except for the home on the property, and the greenhouse area. Everything else is part of the garden. The hardscape is exquisite. It's worth a fortune all by itself.

Do you mean that Dan Hinkley lives ON the property still? You mean he will be living there watching all his garden be dug up and moved to Pa.??

They must have been deeply in debt if they were paid 4.5 million, and couldn't afford to pay 2 million to buy it back. No wonder they sold. I can understand this, as we have a dairy farm that supports the banking industry quite well...

no Dan does not live at the home and garden he sold. They have bought and built a new home at an other location and have I'm sure committed a large part of the net to their new home and life. How someone uses the profits of a company they sold, after a long time of unending labor is the American Dream. Many people have assumed that anyone who profits from their labor as greedy. This is not the case here. They earned every penny they have been paid for their long term commitment to building Heronswood. (Note Pixydish the spelling). Capitalism is not a method of greed, it is a reward for tireless effort and skilled marketing.

Absolutely! I don't begrude Dan 1 penny of what he as earned due to selling plants, or selling property. He deserves it and has worked extremely hard. And you are right, this is the american dream.
What is now happening is just the flip side of a double edged sword.

Amen Soferdig

" Capitalism is not a method of greed, it is a reward for tireless effort and skilled marketing. "

I b'lieve I'll keep that quotation with your permission. Beyond that it represent the system by which individuals and organizations are rewarded commensurate with their intelligence, willingness to risk, and hard work. It is a far better system than communism or socialism and having spent years living and traveling through countries and areas that have been under communism and socialism, well, those who think capitalism is a dirty word have no idea what they are talking about or what the alternative really looks and lives like. Capitalism rewards dreams and those who have the guts to reach and work for them. I don't berate for Hinckley his set of choices, he made them and they're done. ( I do think Ball demonstrated a singular lack of business acumen. ) From what I've read and seen in photos, Hinckley has created a completely new and different paradise overlooking the ocean that is just marvelous. That said, the loss of Heronswood is irreparable. The plants grown there are not going to do as well in the clime of PA no matter what Ball wishes they will do.

Garden designers of many years past, explorers who brought back wonders from their travels, only to find that hardly anyone was interested in them past filing by in a museum, innovators in every walk of life... usually find that they pursue their dreams and interests by themselves. The fate of Herronswood is not that unique. Great accomplishments have a glory day and then they begin to wane. I think that's the way of things. As I read Avent's letter again - I had gotten it also, I realized that I don't really crave a hydrangea from the Himalayas that blooms for 2 weeks either. I don't have Endless Summer but I do have enough to do already and my gardening interests lie elsewhere. How many of you were drooling over having that anyway? There is a time and place for everything, so it will go back to the few who really wanted to, have the $, and are willing to work on providing the conditions for that plant that only grows in alkaline grit on the side of a mountain. I wonder how many people have tried growing Meconopsis? I haven't done even that and anybody can buy 50 seeds for $4.15 from T&M and try it yourself. If we truly want to be better gardeners then let each of us try something that is hard to accomplish. Try your hand at hybridizing, try stretching the zone on something. We may not be able to hike a faraway valley to find the rare and unusual but we can be better gardeners and stewards of our patch of earth.

To me the lesson to take away is that if something is special and you value it, then take care of it and patronize it. If you don't it could be lost to us mostly average folks, and what a shame that is turning out to be.

I hope G. Ball's groovy vision of condo's ringing the famed Heronswood Gardens never, never comes to pass. I am appalled at the thought of it. Now THAT is capitalism at its worst. I hope it's turned into a national, state or non-profit garden that can be maintained for the world to enjoy and I for one would make an extra effort to see it. Mostly to make up for the fact that I never ordered the first thing from Heronswood.

I don't know about the hydrangea that blooms for only two weeks ( not sure which one that is), but I have several hydrangeas from Heronswood and had planned places for several more. And I do grow meconopsis. I like to grow new and unusual plants, even though I have lots of stuff that anyone can get at Home Depot.
Heronswood never had mass appeal. I don't think it was meant to.
Heronswood, in my mind, set the standard for beautiful use of hydrangeas in a woodland setting. They had some climbing hydrangea species that were simply astounding, growing in pure shade.
Here's one of the more unusual cultivars, a photo from last summer. I wish i had photographed the tag. Knowing I can't go back makes the fact that I accidently left my camera at home the last time i went just that much more grievous.
You are so right, Alyrics, about not taking for granted the special plant places we find. I did spend money at Heronswood, as did many people. But it was never going to be a place that sold to the masses. It just wasn't made that way.

edited: Here's a link to a recent story:
http://www.madison.com/tct/features/index.php?ntid=87241&ntpid=0

This message was edited Jun 10, 2006 2:58 PM

Wow, that has to be the most beautiful Hydrangea I've ever seen!

I'm with you all in hopes that Heronswood comes back in some shape or form - at least the gardens for touring. I will forever kick myself for not visiting. I always thought "next year!".

Isn't Heronswood on Bainbridge? If it is, wouldn't that be cool if it was on the Bainbridge tour next year?

OK, I know I promised to leave this thread alone. But several of you have been e-mailing me about it privately, and it suddenly occurred to me that maybe we each should share one or two pics of Heronswood for those who never saw it?
Guy S.

One more . . .

Great idea! Maybe Hinkley will publish a book about Heronswood with a lot of pictures. When you think of it, he has already achieved what few places - people do in life - I have spent several winters curled up with the catalog and chuckling or laughing uproarously at some of the comments in it, dreaming garden dreams that can only happen in Iowa in the winter.....

I'm proud to say I'm growing meconopsis here in Montana in its 3rd year. It has its own microclime and has survived two winters. Guy your making me feel sad with your postings. Your first shot is his back yard and to the right was his vegetable garden the first year. Of course he didn't have any vegetables in it.

Pixy I wasn't going to post anymore on this but that hydrangea is amazing. How beautiful. I know you will treasure it. Can you post the name?

WWAAAHHHH!!! I don't have that one!!! That's one of the ones I was wishing I had bought. I didn't photograph the tag. Yes, it's amazing isn't it?? However, I did manage to snag one of the last catalogs they published that wasn't 'dumbed down' for the masses. They had a couple at the register when I was there because someone has asked for one as a reference. I'm so glad I took one! Maybe it's in that one. If I find it, I'll post here.
But here is one I do have! I got this one last year. It's amazing, too.

Great idea to post photos! Makes me feel better already!

Here's another plant I bought last year. It's a Clerodendrum bungei. It's growing well at the back of one of my perennial borders.

part of the incredible fountain by the pond. Designed and built by Lewis and Little. This piece alone is worth a fortune.

The fountain from the front.

Beautiful. I love the way both the cement and real gunnera leaves are included.