Dan Hinkley inspires people. I think he would be inspiring to anyone, but specifically he is inspiring to plant lovers. Dan is an internationally acclaimed plantsman, plant hunter, author and former nurseryman based in Indianola Washington. He first came to national prominence in the late 1980s and 1990s, when he (at the time an instructor of horticulture at a local community college) and his partner, Robert L Jones (an architect), started a rare and exotic plant nursery and display garden on the woodland grounds of their home in Kingston, Washington: Heronswood Nursery, Ltd. Over time, due to profoundly hard work, deep passion, Dan’s adventurous plant collecting, plant education outreach and expansive personality, Heronswood Nursery became something of a Xanadu for ‘serious’ gardeners throughout the world. Photo: Dan Hinkley, Plant Hunter, in a press-shot for his new book.

Heronswood Open Days held throughout the year were coveted horticultural experiences. The Heronswood catalogue, an annual (and weighty) compendium of personal, alluring and often witty plant descriptions, interspersed with essays on various topics written by guest experts, became collectors’ items. In the summer of 2000, Hinkley and Jones sold Heronswood Nursery Ltd. to W. Atlee Burpee & Co, which went on to close the Heronswood site in Kingston, WA in 2006 and move much of the stock to the company’s headquarters in Pennsylvania. The closure and move were accompanied by dramatic moaning and gnashing of teeth throughout the plant world – and for good reason. Photo: The Heronswood Nursery catalogue written the winter before the nursery was sold to Burpee.
(more…)