Heronswood shuts down





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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