Heronswood Musings

So a certain person bought, closed, moved, and is trying to carry on Heronswood Nursery from the East Coast. Does he believe he bought Dan Hinkley's ability to write?

Scott

No, but he bought the property which is probably worth as much as the nursery. I don't mean to be rude, but this was just another business transaction in a capitalistic nation. The people who created Herronswood must have thought it was a good deal to sell their creation, for about 4 mil, so what's all the fuss? Some people even suggested Dave should have let the subscribers to his business vote on selling. We are merely customers. If people had purchased more plants from Herronswood, perhaps they would not have sold. I know I may be offending the sensibilities of some of the regulars on this forum, but I can exercise the greatest power a consumer has by choosing where I buy plants. I do acknowledge to those that I have offended that I don't purchase exotic plants. I also live in the South where many of their plants needed help in acclimating. Decumbent, You do like to start interesting threads. Just thought I'd give you a "non-regular" view of life. Peace.
Ray

Got the new issue of Garden Design today, Dan Hinkley has a column. Haven't read it yet, though.

Peony,
I, too, am not really interested in dredging up the right or wrong of the sell out, the buy out, et. al. I'm just finding it amusing that on the Heronswood website, there is a "web blog" by George Ball, in which he muses on things horticultural (or not) in rambling essays, ala Dan Hinkley. This, of course, might have been clearer in my initial post had I remembered to include the link! Doh! So, here is that:

http://www.heronswood.com/weblog.asp

I wouldn't say the writing is all that bad, really, because it isn't, although this hellebore bit is pretty strange. It's just that I don't remember any such literary excursions showing up in the Burpee catalog. It's almost as if Ball is saying, "I can do this too! A box of Hinkley's college creative writing textbooks came with the sale!"

As for buying from Heronswood, I placed an order last fall (although I wasn't all that pleased with myself for doing it. But, then, I'm often not pleased with myself for doing things that I do. Alas, it's a short life and a lot to do!). However, out of the five things I ordered, two weren't available, and two (Veratrums) looked deader than the "just dormant" warning label suggested. I'll be a bit surprised if those two plants re-appear this spring, but I hope they do.

Thanks for the "starting interesting threads" compliment. It was a compliment, wasnt it? I love DG and especially like it when ideas are really being freely bantered.

Scott


This message was edited Feb 23, 2007 6:57 PM

Edited to eliminate redundancy.


This message was edited Feb 23, 2007 7:00 PM

I noticed Ball's blog too...didn't read it but I'm assuming he's not half the writer that Dan Hinckley is! I guess that's his way of trying to keep the spirit of Heronswood alive, not sure how that's going to work for them though! I also noticed that (based on Watchdog comments at least) the quality of the plants coming out of Heronswood has gone significantly downhill since the move. My attitude had been that even though I wasn't thrilled with the whole buy/move thing, if they're the only ones that carried something I wanted then I probably would have bought it from them, why deprive myself of something I want just to spite Burpee! But now seeing that they can't send out good quality plants anymore, I don't think I'll risk my money with them.

Scott, It was a compliment. I think as long as people are permitted to express their opinions without being denigrated, the forum works. When someone feels it necessary to impose their will on another person, it doesn't. Hey, I just expressed an opinion! On the two companies - I've never ordered from either one of them. I try to buy most of my plants from local nurseries where I hope the plants, for the most part, are acclimated to our growing environment. I'm no expert, I'm just a hobby gardener.

It seems alot of people are more upset about Heronswoood than Dan Hickley himself. Just MHO