Re: Podcasts (used to be Re: Jeff Ball Returns To Real World)

**Rose Marie McGee r*@comcast.net**

This is the news out here. Happened yesterday, one friend described  
opening an invitation to Burpee's hydrangea event and checking email to  
learn they'd been shut down without news or discussion to any of the  
local parties. All the staffis laid off don't know3 what is happening  
to the property but plants are being shipped to Burpee.
Rose Marie Nichols McGee

   URL:  
http://www.kitsapsun.com/bsun/local/article/ 
0,2403,BSUN_19088_4738081,00.htmlRenowned Heronswood Nursery Closes its  
Gates

By Julie McCormick, jmccormick@kitsapsun.com
  May 30, 2006

  KINGSTON

  Slam. That's the sound of the gates shutting at Heronswood Nursery at  
the beginning of its busiest season.

  In a surprise announcement on Tuesday, 24 stunned employees learned  
that corporate owner W. Atlee Burpee & Co. was ending all local  
operations of the rare plant nursery tucked away in North Kitsap that  
has become a Northwest institution.

  Customers tuned in to the seasonally scheduled open garden tours and  
sales, or planning to sign up for one of its in-depth workshops didn't  
even get to say goodbye. The next June "garden open" will be closed,  
and no one will get a chance to say good-bye to the remarkable acres of  
plantings that a Burpee official called the most extensive private  
botanical garden in the country.

  In its 19 years of operation, Heronswood became a beacon of pleasure  
to tens of thousands of Northwest gardeners and garnered international  
attention for the diversity of its collection, some 6,000 types of  
plants.

  Many were grown from seed collected by co-founder Dan Hinkley, a  
former horticulture instructor at Edmonds Community College.

  He, or sometimes staffers, traveled to the mountainous areas of Asia  
to gather and bring back plants often only previously seen in the wild  
or at botanical gardens in other countries. Customers multiplied.  
Martha Stewart made regular visits and featured Heronswood and its  
plants on her show and in her magazine. National media paid attention,  
both mainstream and special interest.

  The densely descriptive and quirky catalogue -- the way most people  
purchased from Heronswood -- was written personally by Hinkley, got  
larger every year and Heronswood became the little nursery that could.

  But it was precisely the nursery's regional emphasis that was its  
Achilles' heel, said Burpee president George Ball.

  "The vast collection of plants, while they were terrific for people in  
the Pacific Northwest, they weren't good for people in places like Iowa  
and Pennsylvania," said Ball.

  After six years of Burpee ownership, business was flat, and Heronswood  
has never been profitable, Ball said. "You have to be able to make a  
profit if you're going to survive in business, especially with a  
seasonal business," he said.

  Ball, who flew in to announce Heronswood's closure, said Burpee  
staffers will lift samples of the thousands of established plants in  
Heronswood's extensive gardens and take them back to its Pennsylvania  
research and production facilities to work on adapting them to other  
climates less genial than the Pacific Northwest.

  That's what Burpee is known for, said Ball. "Our founder was a genius  
at adapting plants to different climates," he said.

  Hinkley and co-founder and partner Robert Jones have continued to run  
the business under Burpee's ownership. Neither had any hint that it  
would be shut down, nor so quickly. Nor did he completely understand  
why.

  "It (Burpee) is an organization that looks at profit and I assume  
that's what it's all about," he said from his Indianola home, where  
employees gathered after the gates literally were shut.

  "We have a family of employees that I have thought of as my closest  
friends that have really devoted years and years of hard work to making  
Heronswood what it is," he said. "I'm saddened, that's the bottom  
line." Ball said Burpee made above-average outplacement and severance  
offers to employees, but would not describe them in detail.

  He said the company's abrupt announcement was made to spare the  
feelings of employees. If the closure had been announced months ahead  
of time, the long wait for the end would have stolen their dignity, he  
said.

  Both Hinkley and Ball indicated that there have been differences over  
Hersonswood's catalogue, revamped this year with only 250 plants  
offered and full of bright, colorful pictures like most standard  
offerings from giant retailers.

  Hinkley called it a dumbing down that talked down to Heronswood's core  
customer base. Ball said the old one read like a textbook.

  North Kitsap Commissioner Chris Endresen said she was shocked and  
dismayed at the loss of a county treasure. "In fact, it's a national  
treasure, it's nationally known and it's internationally known and  
shame on Burpee," she said.

  Burpee will carefully market the nursery's buildings and grounds, Ball  
said, and will leave the plantings as they are after giving them a  
sampling "haircut." Hinkley said he's working on two books, and will  
continue to travel and look for plants.

  The only part of the collection he owns, he said, are the gleanings  
from his most recent trips to India and the Himalayas.

  As for every fan's burning question, "At this point I have no  
intention of starting another nursery," he said.

  Copyright 2006, kitsapsun.com. All Rights Reserved.
  --
  Robert L. Jones
  Director of Operations
  Heronswood Nursery
  360.297.4172

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