Sad Changes for Heronswood

Posted by Barbara M. Martin Jun 1, 2006

Heronswood Nursery and its botanical garden style collection of exotic plants have been a local landmark in the Pacific Northwest, a renowned destination nursery for plant lovers nationwide and internationally, and a treasured horticultural resource for serious gardeners everywhere. So many of us learned so much from the detailed and encyclopedic sales catalog and certainly founder Dan Hinkley has made countless contributions to horticulture.

In recent years, the nursery was sold to W. Atlee Burpee & Co. There were many misgivings among serious gardeners and existing Heronswood customers at the time of the sale, but initially the change seemed fairly smooth. I love this older Seattle Times article about it from 2001, describing some of the issues: Burpeewood? Heronsburp?

Not surprisingly, as time went along changes have been made under the new ownership and yesterday, without prior notice, the nursery shut its doors. As reported on the web site for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer yesterday, reduced offerings will be available through the Heronswood web site, cuttings will be taken from the botanical garden and moved to Pennsylvania, and the Kingston property with its plant collection will be offered for sale.

Although I doubt that Burpee intended for this to happen in quite this way, it is truly unfortunate that Burpee was not able to continue Heronswood as an ongoing profitable concern.

Perhaps the plant selection, although incredible and exotic, was too limited in the sense that the plants would for the most part thrive only in the Pacific Northwest, thus restricting the overall sales potential. Truth be told, I never purchased from Heronswood, fearing their most interesting plants would not thrive in my midwestern and upper south and east coast gardens, let alone in Southern California.

And so the bottom line being the bottom line, sadly, this is the end of the road. As with so many of our beloved plants, a favorite nursery can be ephemeral too. I fear this sudden loss will engender a sort of visceral ill will toward Burpee among the cadre of serious American gardeners. And I can't help but wonder why Burpee did not anticipate this problem prior to purchasing the nursery in the first place?

All the same, I really do just hate to see gardeners lose such a terrific resource. In a perfect world, the business of horticulture would surely allow for some meandering paths or roads less followed?

You can read the Seattle Post Intelligencer article World-famous Heronswood Nursery Closes and take at look at the current version of the comparatively limited catalog at the Heronswood web site.