Re: Heronswood shuts down

At 07:48 AM 6/1/2006, Joe Seals wrote:
I am greatly disappointed that Heronswood is now closed but, if you'll forgive me, I'm surprised that Hinkley is surprised.
Hinkley sold his company to make a profit and expected that Burpee wanted to do the same (over some time).
(As a side, I'm stunned that Burpee didn't "know" that Heronswood's core was selling PNW-appropriate plants to PNW gardeners.)
The essence of this story is not new. It's been repeated hundreds of times in every type of business, including the hort industry. Mom and poppers sell out to large companies and the company is either dismantled or is moved to another place; in either case, the original employees -- and the original owners -- lose out.
Mom and poppers have the heart and soul that it takes to make a company truly sustainable and beneficial to the community. Big businesses rarely do.
That's my soapbox for today.
Joe
What springs to mind for me is how regionalism is so easily squelched by globalism. There are advantages to both approaches, and one should not rule over the other (as this case so clearly illustrates).

I was talking to a publisher a while back regarding a book ides he & I came up with. It became very clear after a short while that he was only going to consider the project if I morphed it completely away from the original concept into something that would have appeal ALL of North America. When you are talking about the finer points of horticulture, you should (if you are doing it properly) be talking regionally. I have come to see that perhaps the most successful horticultural publications (in terms of sales) are those that don't acknowledge a regional perspective at all, and are published by publishers who don't even understand the importance of this approach. The fact that they are not really very useful in the long run never seems to surface - as long as there are naive gardeners who will consider purchasing them, all is well.

The Heronswood story does represent a potential problem any specific regionally unique area might have to deal with. In California, even with its varied, small, and reasonably climate sensitive nurseries, we still can feel the push of large national horticultural enterprises that try and force us in directions that represent profit rather than regional appropriateness. Again, a naive gardener is much more likely to think their lack of success if due to them having a 'black thumb' then to consider that they were sold the wrong plant by a large, 'reputable' nursery. 'Snake Oil' is still being sold here in the West!

Seán O.

h o r t u l u s _ a p t u s - - - - - 'a garden suited to its purpose'
Seán A. O'Hara --- sean(at)gimcw.org --- www.hortulusaptus.com
1034A Virginia Street, Berkeley, California 94710-1853, U.S.A.
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