Heronswood Closes

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Comments

The news saddens me. I hope the collection of Heronswood plants at UBC doesn't become a memorial to the nursery and its founders. Thank you for the list. Perhaps Hinkley and Jones will move on to something even more grand.

Posted by: Chuck Robinson at June 1, 2006 5:42 AM

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Heronswood is not just a plant nursery. I has been a place to bond with my best and oldest friend. We have so many grand memories of strolling though the amazing gardens, looking to the sky through the towering trees, sometimes the sun filtering through and sometimes the rain pouring through. It has been a source of escape from the usual corporate potted plants outside the grocery stores into a world of plants we don't ever see and could acquire and watch thrive in our local gardens. The plants I still grow that came from Heronswood, Kingston, WA will now be my treasures. I will be sure to watch over them with special care and each time I tend to them, remember how awesome it was to go to Heronswood, with my best girlfriend, grab a catalog and spend the day, looking at plants from around the world! Thanks Heronswood and all you Heronistas. It's too soon to say goodbye.

Posted by: Nancy Hanson at June 4, 2006 8:38 PM

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Surely some concerned people in the horticultural community will work to create a consortium to purchase and manage that wonderful and fantastic collection at Heronswood.

Posted by: Linda Orton at June 6, 2006 1:31 PM

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BOYCOTT BURPEE!

Posted by: muerte a burpee at June 6, 2006 8:06 PM

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I for one am a Burpee boycotter! But, then I never bought anything from them in the first place, when I had Heronswood to rely on for such wonderful plants.

Susan

Posted by: Susan Johnston at June 8, 2006 9:57 AM

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My garden too is filled with Heronswood specimens. Even now, I am looking out at an amazing wygela (sp>) with all kinds of bees and hummingbirds all over it. I have close ties to workers at the gardens, Heronistas as they called themselves. I know they are going through an immense grieving process. They arrived to work Monday to be greeted with 'severance packages' that are a little insulting. The gate was then locked and a guard posted. Seems a little strange. I, too, will be boycotting Burpee. There are better ways to handle what, in this case, is a literal plant closure.

Posted by: Kirie Rose at June 8, 2006 4:05 PM

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I don’t know what Burpee imagined that they were getting into when they purchased Heronswood, but in Mr. Ball’s recent remarks and actions I see indications that he neither understands nor respects Heronswood’s customers. Burpee purchased additional land for Heronswood, which certainly was an indication of good faith, but they made little effort, so far as I have observed, to promote and popularize the business other than to send colorful mailings. Before trying to expend Eastern markets, I'd have tried promoting the nursery in key markets along the entire West Coast, to which much of Heronswood’s specialized collection was particularly relevant. Burpee did not at all understand the function of the thick Heronswood catalog, which along with the even thicker Forestfarm catalog, I typically scan or read page by page, cover to cover. The Web is unparalleled for the process of searching but is still poor for browsing as compared to a paper document.

I doubt I am alone in maintaining a large mental wishlist of plants I would have quickly purchased had I known what Burpee was up to. Had Heronswood been closed out in a more civilized manner instead of locked down like a meth lab, I suspect that Burpee could have sold much of the remaining inventory, and retained the good will of many more of Heronswood’s customers. I also suspect it would have been a good move to have retained Mr. Hinckley, and the Heronswood site as a test and display garden, at least transitionally, even as production and distribution was relocated. I for one would happily have paid a reasonable admission fee. Apart from the garden, Burpee acquired four things of value by purchase of Heronswood. One was the expertise and reputation of Dan Hinckley, who they abandoned, customer’s loyalty to the Heronswood brand, which they trashed, the enthusiastic following of eager purchasers who want what Heronswood sells, and the physical inventory of plants, which in the end is all that they took care to salvage.

I suspect that Burpee may not fully appreciate the difference between the nursery business and the mass marketing of seeds. Mr. Ball faulted Heronswood for its regional emphasis, but nursery owners on both sides of the Mississippi have told me that they cannot compete with the big-box stores on their mainstay sales of common ornamentals, and must specialize or die. Ed Hume seeds appear to receive disproportionate distribution in the Northwest in relation to the size of the company, specifically because they are attuned to a particular region. No company can operate for very long without turning a profit, but I suspect that the regional emphasis that Burpee regards as Heronswood’s Achilles Heel with savvy marketing could have been one of its fundamental strengths.

Posted by: JLG at June 16, 2006 6:05 PM

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Ball ended up with Heronswood because Dan and Bob were through with it. In a way, it was time to get out the black arm bands six years ago.

Posted by: Ron B at June 17, 2006 11:26 PM

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