Burp(ee)?

I hope this is a very bad joke, but it certainly looked credible. Someone I trust sent me a series of press reports that George Ball and his Burpee Company, which bought out Heronswood a few years ago, suddenly closed the place because they weren't getting rich enough off their investment. One day recently the gates were locked and the employees (including the famous founders, who still were managing the nursery) were told to take a long walk on a short pier.

The news articles are much too long (and copyrighted) to include here, but you probably can do a media search and find some of them. One of the premier, most responsible, and most respected rare-plant nurseries in the world, Heronswood even followed the practice of vetting all their new introductions via exotics experts to avoid introducing invasive plants. I was there just last year and it was a fascinating place. Heronswood should not be allowed to fall victim to corporate greed.

If this turns out to be true, we need to spread the word far and fast among our gardening friends and organizations. Boycott the greedy burpy scum who would do this, and tell them why!

Guy S.

Payer = someone who pays
Payee = someone who gets paid

Burper = someone who burps
Burpee = someone who gets burped at

All together now, . . .

Here's one news account -- I hope they'll allow it to be posted here despite the copyright notice since it's going all around the world anyway:
---------------
HARLEY SOLTES / THE SEATTLE TIMES
The sign leading into Heronswood Nursery was marked as "Closed for Business Today" on Tuesday, and a guard was posted at the gate to the Kingston nursery.
Paradise lost: Heronswood uprooted
By Christine Clarridge
Seattle Times staff reporter
Fans of Kitsap County's internationally acclaimed Heronswood Nursery — which is credited with putting the Pacific Northwest on the horticulturalist's map by introducing thousands of exotic plants from around the world — are about to suffer transplant shock.

Horticulture giant W. Atlee Burpee & Co., which bought Heronswood in 2000, told employees Tuesday it was shutting down the Kingston nursery and moving the research and retail operations to company headquarters in Pennsylvania. The company said it will retain the Heronswood name and catalog and will continue to offer a similar variety of plants.

For the founders of Heronswood as well as the thousands of gardeners who visited the lush nursery over the years, the news was devastating.

"This has been like dealing with a death in the family," said Daniel J. Hinkley, who began Heronswood with his partner Robert Jones nearly 20 years ago. "We're sad because we believed in Heronswood and believed it was more than just a nursery. We were trying to contribute to the horticultural community and the community as a whole."

Valerie Easton, a gardening expert and frequent contributor to The Seattle Times, said the gap left by the nursery's departure will not be easily filled.

"Heronswood is a Mecca for gardeners around the world, and it's quintessentially Northwest," Easton said. "Without Dan Hinkley or its Northwest setting, I don't know what Heronswood is."

A plant explorer, Hinkley traveled the world to find unusual and exotic specimens that would thrive in the Pacific Northwest. He brought them home to Heronswood, planted them, grew them and sold them through a highly anticipated and richly detailed catalog.

It was through Heronswood that hardy orchids and many species of hellebores were introduced to the U.S., according to Richard Hartlage, a landscape architect with AHBL Inc.

"This is a disaster," Hartlage said. "Everyone is just shocked."

When the sale was announced six years ago, many local garden lovers feared that Heronswood's homegrown charm and emphasis on Northwest cultivars would be swallowed by the profit needs of the much larger and older Pennsylvania company.

But those fears receded as years passed and Heronswood and Burpee seemed to coexist peacefully. Heronswood remained a plant lovers' paradise that counted Martha Stewart among its fans, a world-renowned garden with 10,000 plant species, and two dozen dedicated employees dubbed "Heronistas."

Burpee President George Ball said the decision to close the Heronswood gardens and move the nursery operations was a financial one.

"We tried for six years and it just wasn't profitable," said Ball, who was in Kingston on Tuesday to break the news to Heronswood employees.

Ball said the move, which is expected to take place over the next three months, will enable the company to expand its product line to include varieties better suited to flourish in other parts of the U.S.

"The plants we've collected from around the world will be tested under conditions more similar to those of our customers," he said.

Burpee operates a 50-acre nursery in Willow Hill, Pa., and a similarly sized test-and-display garden complex at Fordhook Farm in Doylestown, Pa.

Ball offered an apology to local gardeners who were grieving the loss.

"I'm sorry for that," he said. "If I could bat a thousand, I would, but nobody's perfect, and I did the best I could."

Of the 26 employees at Heronswood, seven have been asked to work through the summer. The others were told their jobs were gone, Ball said.

The gates to Heronswood were locked shortly after the announcement and workers began packaging plants for transport, Hinkley said.

"The hardest thing for me to swallow right now is that this is what people feared would happen," he said. "It was my decision to sell to a large corporate nursery, and it was not a decision that was made lightly, but I made it, so ultimately I am the person to blame."

The closing will leave a gaping hole in the local horticultural landscape, several experts said, and gives rise to speculation about whether someone will step in to fill the void.

Hinkley said that while he has several years remaining on a noncompete clause with Burpee, he is not ruling out the possibility of starting anew.

Ball said the 15-acre Heronswood property, which he called the best private botanic garden in the U.S., will be sold to someone who will honor it. "We're not going to just sell it to a developer who will tear it apart," Ball said.

Hinkley said he hopes that's true.

"One thing I want to tell the people at Burpees is that the garden is filled with some extraordinarily rare things, and I hope that whoever acquires it values it."
Christine Clarridge: 206-464-8983 or cclarridge@seattletimes.com
Copyright © 2006 The Seattle Times Company

and here's one more, of many:
--------------------
World-famous Heronswood Nursery closes

Owners plan to relocate it, but new site may be online only

Wednesday, May 31, 2006

By GORDY HOLT
P-I REPORTER

It was barely 2 o'clock Tuesday and the news had yet to sink in, but Dan Hinkley was already on his second beer.

Heronswood, the world-renowned Kingston plant nursery founded by Hinkley, and a place treasured across the Northwest and around the world for its collection of exotic plants, had just been closed by the Philadelphia-based Burpee seed company.
Meryl Schenker / P-I
The famed Heronswood Nursery is home to a number of exotic plants. These Helleborus are from the Baltic states.

After hearing of the closure, Hinkley was not without words although he was, he said, "still in shock."

"Yeah, obviously, it's very sad for me," he said. "They didn't even afford me the opportunity to see the news release."

The organization had bought Heronswood Nursery from Hinkley, a world-class plant hunter, and his partner, Robert Jones, six years ago with a promise to keep things as they were, with Hinkley still hunting down rare plants for the nursery's collection while Jones ran the business end.

Well, things change, said George Ball, president of the W. Atlee Burpee & Co., the nation's oldest and arguably most successful home-gardening company.

"But we're not closing it, we're just moving it," he said.

Turns out the move may be to online only.

Hans Miller, Burpee's vice president, said Tuesday that the company has no immediate plan to open a Heronswood nursery in Pennsylvania, where the company has a 50-acre nursery at Willow Hill and a similar-size test and display garden at Fordhook Farm in Doylestown.

Burpee will test the market for a Heronswood facility at an event dubbed the Heronswood Hydrangea Open at Fordhook Farm, July 14-15.

If it doesn't test well, Miller said, "Heronswood will just be a Web mail-order site."

As Ball spoke into the business end of his cell phone from Kingston on Tuesday, the Burpee president said he was helping with the packing.

"When we purchased this six years ago," he said, "we were anxious to make it a profitable company that would be fulfilling our ambition to serve a national audience of gardeners, which is predominantly on the East Coast. For six years we worked away at it. But finally we decided the best thing would be that we relocate."

Among Hinkley's associates hard hit by Tuesday's news was Sarah Reichard, a specialist in the biology of invasive organisms at the UW's College of Forest Resources.

"This is not a good thing for Heronswood," she said. "I'm a major customer, but I guess I won't be anymore."

In recent years Hinkley leaned heavily on Reichard to determine which of the plant species he had been gathering might threaten the Northwest's native species.

"He has been very responsible," she said. "Going through his catalog -- what, now, seven or eight years? -- I've identified 15 or so species I was concerned about, and he took them out of his collection and marked another 200 as potentially a problem. At no time was there any pushback. He simply said, 'It's up to you, if that's what you think.' "

Hinkley said he won't be wanting for things to do, even though his contract with Burpee included a five-year non-compete clause that will keep him from creating another nursery during that period. His lecture schedule and two more books will fill the bill for a while.

Less is known about the future of Heronswood's famed display gardens. Burpee's president was circumspect.

"Oh," he said, "we're not digging things up to ship back East. No. I'm hoping to keep this as long as we can, hoping to find ... let's say ... someone who wants to buy one of the few first-class private botanic gardens certainly in America if not the world.

"But I haven't figured all that out yet."

Heronswood was founded on little more than a leaf and a prayer in 1987 while Hinkley taught horticulture classes at Edmonds Community College, and Jones, a University of Washington-trained architect, kept his pencils sharp at a Seattle architecture firm.

In dribs and drabs, one species at a time, the nursery's catalog was built and its display garden took shape. Then, almost before either knew it, their knowledge and expertise earned them recognition throughout the plant world.

The photoless catalogs Hinkley produced annually had become collector's items. And through essays, books and his Heronswood Web site, Hinkley has kept the public abreast of his Indiana Jones-like hunt for fine but little-known plants.

China, Nepal and South Africa are just some of the places Hinkley and his trowel traveled after he graduated with a master's degree from the University of Washington's Center for Urban Horticulture.

From China, for example, came this communique:

Truly, there is no excuse. I should have been more mentally prepared for what they meant. "Road Bad," we were told. "Road Bad" embraces a great deal of plasticity across this planet. I knew this. "Road Bad" in China translates to 180 miles of barely passable terrain, all of which is under construction, though no one seems to be working on it. Then add three days of torrential rains."

Did he get his plant? He goes on:

Our minds drifted from the moment, fast-forwarding to the most aggravating part of the process. Phytosanitary certificates, inspections, lost packages, changed rules at the USDA. Our bellies hurt down deep with anxiety. We know these hurdles possess the potential to mar the polish of the days we have experienced in Sichuan. Yet, this time at least, the buff and shine of this most incredible journey has remained intact. The seeds are now safely to Heronswood and sown.

But now there is no longer a Heronswood where they can set roots and produce offspring for the rest of the world to enjoy.

© 1998-2006 Seattle Post-Intelligencer

I found the second article online after your first post. Can you believe the ho-hum attitude of George Ball. !

Why in the hell did he buy the place if he didn't respect what it was and did? What on earth was he thinking when he thought it would fit into the "Burpee" corporate culture? Why do corporations buy up entrepreneureal businesses that succeed by their idiosyncratic and innovative spirit, and then are amazed when the businesses fail after that spirit is crushed by corporate management and boardroom decisions? Why, when this business did fail because of George Ball's total inability to grasp the reasons Heronswood was special, did he not make the only decent choice possible and offer to sell the place back to its founders or other investors who might have had the insight to preserve a unique and important company? Ball's s is one thing, his uncaring attitude another, but this most recent bungling is flat out arrogant, mean-spirited, and unethical.


And that same old tired piece of pap Burpee Seed Company catalog that looks just about the same now as it did when my father got it forty years ago lives on. And George Ball returns to his fine home after work everyday oblivious to what he personally took away from a lot of people.

Scott

This message was edited Jun 5, 2006 1:30 PM

I'm just not feeling your pain. Dan Hinkley made a business decision six years ago...one that no doubt left him financially very well-off. Corporate America is filled with similar sad tales in which a highly successful small (by corporate standards) business sells out to a larger business, only to fail to meet company profit projections and is shut down or rolled into the parent company operations. Some businesses just don't easily transfer from being a small owner-operator type establishment into the coldly efficient world of big business. I'm not sure if this is the case, but it wouldn't surprise me one bit. Why do you think Dan sold out?

"The hardest thing for me to swallow right now is that this is what people feared would happen," he said. "It was my decision to sell to a large corporate nursery, and it was not a decision that was made lightly, but I made it, so ultimately I am the person to blame."

I think that pretty much sums it up.

Well, what sums it up for me is that I will use every opportunity to tell prospective Burpee customers about this dirty deal. This is not Hinckley's pain, its horticulture's. I say Boycott the bums at Burpee!

Sofer, what's your take on this, from your unique viewpoint?

Guy S.

Yeah, my point too. I'm not really on Hinkley's side in this, but on the side of the employees and the customers (and the gardens!). And the fact that corporate history is filled with sad tales of big companies buying and then culturally strangling small, successful companies means it is only that much more foreseeable for the powers at play and therefore that much more inexcusable when it happens.

Scott

Yes--one thing we can all agree on is anguish for the 26 employees who are out of a job through no fault of their own. That's the real tragedy here, and one that is repeated all too often.

Well being closely involved with my old friend Dan, I know that selling Herronswood was agonal to both he and Bob. They put their lives in that garden and it was litterally their home. I remember Dan Planting in a vegetable garden spot, in backof their house, plants he had collected from Puget sound and starting to propagate at that time only for personal uses at their home. Now this is after Dan had Cataloged the entire UW aboretum by living in a stone gate-keepers house for 3 years. He had only a small electric space heater for his winters, and a small wood stove. When I visited him there he was in bliss to have his days in such a wonderful place. Then he went on to Blodell Gardens out on Bainbridge Island where he began his first collection work and development of their special gardens. Dan moved into another world seeing the plants that were growing there and the advantage of its zonal placement. I was always met with a big grin as Dan worked as we visited. (Dan never to this day sits still very long) You always talk to Dan while he is gardening. This is when he and Bob decided to buy a piece of land nearby to build their garden first and after sacrificial priority to the garden they started to work on the house. Well this is after the small plastic 10'X12' green house was over come by Dan's collections. Bob was a very patient person. Dan now was teaching at Edmonds Community College and starting his dream of collecting rare plants and traveling the world. He always told me that our early lives and trusting parents set a spark to see the world. He and I would travel by bicycle to many places in Michigan, sometimes over 100 miles from home to spend a week or more on our own to explore at age 10 and on. We went to Europe and crossed paths in Norway, Finland and other places where Dan was doing his masters in horticulture in a small college in Norway. Well on to his travels, Dan disapeared from my seeing him frequently when I visited the now Herronswood Nursery. I would stop by to see the progress of this place and became awed by the nursery grounds. Dan had hired 2 people to care for his world and they were the first "Herronites". They, like Dan, were always busy with his next project. His dogs ran freely around this home of his, that was now becomming a piece of his heart, as it grew. His smile was only bigger cause it was both joy of being out in the garden and pride in what he and Bob were creating. Oh, their house hardly changed. Now this is when Martha Stewart connected and promoted what she saw as an emerging collection of unique plants and often visited him as she worked in Seattle. Once she landed a helicopter on some neighbors wetlands and got it stuck and had to haul out the copter in pieces. But that is a story in itself. Martha helped Dan immensely to becoming what we know of him today. He visited her shows with his soft and wonderful humor and started developing the "Indiana Jones" character that he is famous today for. When ever I continued to visit I learned to call ahead to see when Dan would be home. For it was rare that he could enjoy this Herronswood because he was swept up by stardom and was in great demand. Now this was also done with great joy because he loved to make people happy while teaching them his genius. Herronswood now was being run and developed by Bob who was in his own a genius of management, computer knowledge, and marketing skills. This he was, after he had a successful career in architecture in Seattle which he left to "grow" Herronswood. Every visit then was a new experience because the woodland, the ponds, and wetlands, were becoming hardscaped and the home was being surrounded with investments into the garden that we all know today. Bob's computer knowledge and Dans perspective on travel, built the catalog business that has continued until last Tuesday. The origional Herronites were still there working with personal pride and many had been added. Each one hoping to remain there because both Bob and Dan were the perfect owners, they gave them areas of expertise that they were confident that they could develope. I know that these employees were well paid and given benifits beyond the scale at which they could receive anywhere else. I remember one employee that had to leave and there was great loss at one who was involved in this family having to leave the nursery. I now was limited to visiting Dan during the open houses because I felt his life was too busy to take any moments away to schedule a visit. I remember several meals that Dan and Bob cooked for me and our discussions of life and gardening were to me unforgettable. Dan was doing what God wanted him to do. The joy and pleasure was evident in the financial success they were experiencing. The house finally got a new look and their kitchen would make Martha jealous. Dan and Bob now had the opportunity of considering their efforts, which now were over whelming, and consumed every moment to have a company to buy the nursery. This was not a time that I was able to be around Dan and I do not know the agony, which I know happened, to be observed. Yes they sold it for a profit but you have no idea how much genetic accumulation Burpee received and the prestige that this purchase bought them. Dan and Bob knew that their "child" called Herronswood would no longer be theirs but they were assured by contract and their presence in contuined management that it would be continued in its traditional way. Now as far as Dan being responsible for the demise of Herronswood I could not disagree more. He is a leader who with his character, has to let all of those who loved Herronswood to continue, to assume responsibility. But I know how painful this has been to him and how he regrets to see what is happening. This genetic mass of plants is far too expensive to have him buy back. He was until a short time ago only a landscape designer, teacher, business owner, and now lecturer to have the financial resourses to do so. Yes this is such a place only the very successful financial entrepreneur can now purchase. Dan thank goodness is no such person. He is a loving, giving, energetic soul who has used his gifts to bring together what we all have come to love at Herronswood. He should be honored not criticized for his contribution to our world of gardening. Let Dan continue to collect plants, not invest his rewards, to keep Herronswood alive. Let this Phoenix rise, from this event into what only Dan can accomplish with his gifts. Let his heart continue to be commited to bringing more of, what we who love, what he loves to grow. Thank you my friend for what you have done! You friend Steve.

This message was edited Jun 2, 2006 10:51 AM

Soferdig, what a very wonderful tribute to your friend!

Steve, Thanks for sharing your experiences with Dan and Bob and Heronswood...

Good job, Steve. You added a lot of insight and detail that I did not know. So you grew up in Michigan with Dan as a friend? What is it about Michigan as a font of great horticulturists? Is the sandy soil, the blue skies, cool summers, and plenty of water?

Now, back to bashing George Ball. I wonder, given the circumstances, if he would have the decency to release Dan from his no-compete clause? Somehow I can imagine his answer: "Ah, well, that's an idea, and something I could easily do, but I'd rather not."

I wonder if the monetary value of the Heronswood gardens, genetic material, and home would really be that high. In a non-monetary world, as we all know, the collection is priceless; but in the real world of commerce the collection is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it. The actual Heronswood real estate has little value now to Burpee. Propagation from the collections made only enough sales to support two owner-managers and 29 employees--as Burpee found out. The overall purchase price to buy it back, if George Ball were so inclined, might not be so astronomically high. Furthermore, there are many examples of employee purchases or buy-backs of companies which have been successful. Financing, of course, was required, but I do not see where Hinkley would have a problem acquiring that if the purchase price were anything near reasonable

Somehow, on digesting this further, Ball's actions on this smack of a ploy of some sort. Either that, or this is the result of a very bad personal falling out between him and Hinkley (or, more likely, the entire staff at Heronswood). It seems a very spiteful, reckless, pointless move, otherwise. Surely, he does not believe that "moving" (what? the plants?) the operation somewhere else and going strictly mail-order (which Heronswood primarily was anyway), is going to rectify a single problem. At best, he is probably trying to prompt an employee takeover, at worse he is an insulated, arrogant .

BTW, sorry to be a hothead on this issue and not my usual jovial self, but idiots in suits destroying dreams and lives through incompetence and at the stroke of a pen is something that really gets me going. I have seen many, many people who have given twenty and thirty years to companies, who cared for their company as much as anyone in the boardroom ever did, have their careers ended and their pensions lost by such people, and I have seen how the trickles through their families and through the communties as well. Meanwhile, the bigwigs award themselves another round of bonuses for making the tough decisions needed to turn the company around. It is sickening, and people in positions of responsibility need to be above all else responsible. Sorry again.

Scott

This message was edited Jun 5, 2006 1:31 PM

Scott I am not going to elaborate due to liability issues but the decisions made at the Burpee business is questionable on their ability to keep burpee going. There were lots of issues when Herronswood was purchased and the other board members were quite against it. Therefore the sudden onset of corporate decisions to the dismay of us all. The genetic potential of selling Herronswood to anyone will upset the apple cart on Burpee's big plan. I wouldn't be too hopefull. And yes the business value of Herronswood is quite high. I would assume that Dan has had enough of the business end of owning his own business and would like to make his life last longer by slowing down. People who haven't owned their ownbusiness don't understand the non-stop effort it takes to keep ahead of the business growth, liability, employee and creative needs.

This message was edited Jun 5, 2006 11:33 AM

I wouldn't bash Geo Ball too much for his business decision. Yes, the genetic potential of Heronswood is enormous, but most of the stuff he collected doesn't thrive except in the PNW. After all, that was his main collecting goal, wasn't it? That's something Geo probably realized way too late and made his family really mad since they didn't want to buy it to begin with. I hope the beautiful and rich gardens are preserved, and I hope that his fans in PNW do so by banding together and turning it into a botanical garden. But as a nursery, there were few plants offered that did well in many areas of the US, period. It was obviously a mistake on Geo Ball's part and I feel good that he corrected it.

I was affronted by the suggestion that Dan Hinkley brought PNW horticulture to the forefront. It was not he, but Ann Lovejoy, who first showed the magnificence of the plant collecting in that area (by MANY people) in the popular press and *its use in the garden* and who highlighted the English derived use of plant material design in her many books that makes PNW a mecca for gardeners. There are others, many others, who quietly went about their plant finding (I think of World Plants in OR and Betsy Clepsch in CA) and created magnificent gardens of great substance. IMHO, Hinkley is an almost minor and very regional player (very chi-chi in his time) in the great tapestry of wonderful west coast gardening. He and his nursery were a popular press figure in the 1990's, just as Burpee was in the 1920's.

Rosemary

As someone who actually lives in the Pacific Northwest and has been to visit heronswood many times, I can tell you that regardless of what people in other parts of the US think, this is a very great loss to this area. Because gardening is a national pasttime in this part of the country, there are many wonderful gardening 'gurus' who have added exponential amounts of knowlege to the gardening community here and across the country. Ann Lovejoy is only one. Dan Hinkley is another.
But heronswood was the accepted gardener's mecca here. This in no way means that other nurseries are not good - we have an embarrassment of choices when it comes to good nurseries in this region. However, Heronswood sold plants you couldn't get anywhere else, and the extensive display gardens are magnificent. It's one thing to see an on-line catalog, and quite another to go to the garden and see that 6 foot tall jack-in-the-pulpit growing in the forest.
I guess we can't expect any sympathy from people who don't live here, and I don't think we need it. It is painfully obvious that some of you have little appreciation for this subject. What Burpee did was reprehensible on many fronts. The last time I was at Heronswood, a little over two weeks ago, I had a conversation with one of the Heronistas who was out grooming the full sun perennial bed. She talked about how much she loved her job, how much she loved the garden and that even thought she didn't make much money, she looked forward to coming to work every day. She knew all about each and every plant in that garden as though it were her own Everyone on this website is a gardener. We know how she felt. Later, one of the horitculturists walked with me through the wooded area and I had an opportunity to ask questions about specific plants. He spoke knowlegably about them and I could tell that he loved the place.
I always thought Dan Hinkley made a mistake when he sold Heronswood to Burpee. But after all, burpee did say they would leave well enough alone. I don't begrudge whatever money Dan made by selling the place. He deserves it. He worked very hard to make it what it is and was entirely successful.
The gardening community here is just sick about this. I was at the Point Defiance Garden show in Tacoma today and everyone was talking about this and just shaking their heads.
In terms of Ball's business decision: you can believe it when I say that the bashing has only begun! There are many plants at Heronswood that thrive in zones different than the Northwest. If Burpee didn't do their research when they bought the company, that's their fault. If their gardening 'clientelle' are all on the east coast, why bother to buy that nursery anyway? And it doesn't matter how much of a loss they were taking: it's entirely unethical and borders on evil to so abruptly close the place down the way they did without so much as a 'how do you do'. If he had to make a 'business decision' (a politically correct way of saying that it's okay to basically treat people like dirt) then the very least he could have done is give people proper notice so that they had an opportunity to find other jobs. Not that there are any other jobs of that kind in the area.

I sure hope Burpee finds a bunch of plants that will thrive on the east coast, because it's bloody unlikely that they'll be selling much to the west coast people anymore.

This is one of the most fascinating threads I have read so far on this forum. I am reading "real gardeners" talk about real gardens and real people who love gardening. Let us continue more in this vein.

This is a very sad tale, but not one that is uncommon in the plant trade. Many great Nurseries have gone by the way side shortly after the Original owners sell. Sometimes managing the business end becomes overwelmimg, sometimes they want to retire, there is an illness or worse, and sometimes they just loose interest and/or want to move on. Whatever it is, when a new owner takes charge things change. Its inevitable. I am sure that Dan and Bob agonized a great deal when the decission was made to sell because they had to have known that Heronswood would be vulnerable after it was no longer under their control. But they did sell.

Perhaps a foundation could be formed to buy and perserve Heronswood. Bashing Ball/Burpee isn't going to save this place. Someone needs to start the ball rolling, maybe a garden club in the area could form a committe and try to erect a plan. Or a group of gardeners could band together and create a non-profit organization to buy and protect Heronswood. I bet raising the funds would be almost effortless considering the amount of interest and that with the proper legal non-profit statis, could be tax deductable...

Rosemary you are right, many people are in the forefront of gardening in the PNW. Dan in any of my discussions was not any forefront. I only think his contribution is wonderful to what we wanted. An imaginary travel where we could be part of the experience of plant collection and the unique perspective he brought.

Pixy, please don't lump the rest of us in that category. Most of us know that Heronswood grew many plants adapted to other regions, because we bought some of them. Many of us have made the pilgrimage to Heronswood Mecca despite living thousands of miles away. Ann Lovejoy is a fine garden writer, but she's not the one under consideration here and is irrelevant to this discussion. The person from Texas apparently has no idea of the significance of this place or the reason we all are so upset. The rest of us are solidly behind you, and hopefully she will come around as well, and I think we all are fortunate to have Steve's personal perspective on this.

I, for one, will neither buy from nor recommend Burpee ever again. Burpee is the outdated, mundane big box store of mailorder nurseries, while Heronswood was unique. And as you can see from me starting this thread, I will do whatever I can to bring the righteous wrath of the green world down upon greedy Mr. Ball and his corporate wallet. If Patrick can get something going along the lines of his foundation proposal, count me in on that too.

Guy S.

What other companies might Burpee own (under another name )that we can also boycott? I will certianly not order from them...and I loved Heronswood and Dan..(met only one time)..but so nice and so very knowledgeable. I have ordered many things from Heronswood. (some made it some didn't)..but that is gardening right?

Pixy,

A lot of sympathy here, and sadness also.

A big part of my gardens came from Heronswood. A lot of what Dan offered wasn't hardy here, but boy, there sure were a lot of offering that were. My two Cercidiphyllum japonicum Heronswood Globe are probably my favorite small trees. Dan described his offerings in such a way that was more appealing than most pictures ever could be.

I almost cried when I found out we weren't going to get the big book anymore. Now I'm sick to my stomach to hear what Burpee is doing.

Polly

This should be posted under Perennials also

Burpee is a good seed company and a good source for vegetable gardens.

This message was edited Jun 5, 2006 11:35 AM

LOL or Burpee kills Heronswood (or Ball kills Hinkley)

Count me as one who made the pilgrimage, thoroughly enjoyed my visit there, and as one who has ordered many numbers of Heronswood plants. I did not have significantly greater mortality from Heronswod offerings than any other mail-order companies, and certainly no more than I expected. When one is ordering rare and newly introduced species, one does not expect to do so without some element of risk. And I think Dan has always been forthright about this and very conservative in his estimations of hardiness.

Again, it begs the question, what was George Ball thinking when he bought Heronswood and who did he think its customers were? I never could grasp what Burpee was thinking in this whole venture. The only way they were going to make the collaboration succeed was to let Heronswood be Heronswood. Did they think they were going to infuse a lot of Heronswood offerings into the Burpee catalog? A Fordhook Euphorbia maybe? A Better Girl Styrax? Did they see a lucrative future of weekend gardeners planting out beds and beds of basement-started Podophyllums? I think they did. Ball didn't know what Heronswood was. He didn't know the customers. He didn't know the plants. He didn't get the culture. He didn't understand the importance. He got in there and bungled it all up, and now all he wants is a way out.

It is one thing to go out and buy a sports car when you haven't owned one before and don't understand them. A rich guy can buy one and destroy it and all he's done is waste his own money. But when you are in a position to buy a company with people's lives and dreams a part of it, you better go into it fully understanding what that company is and what you are doing.

I think the only decent thing for Ball to do is donate the gardens to some consortium intent on preserving them on Bainbridge Island, and to sell what's left to either the employees or some other entity that intends to restore Heronswood to its rightful place.

Scott

"Ball didn't know what Heronswood was. He didn't know the customers. He didn't know the plants. He didn't get the culture. He didn't understand the importance. He got in there and bungled it all up, and now all he wants is a way out"

You are so right! And thanks for the kind replies to my post. I'm certainly not 'lumping' anyone together, but I admit to being really rubbed the wrong way by a couple of posts. I think my own emotional response to this has taken me by surprise.


" A Fordhook Euphorbia maybe? A Better Girl Styrax? Did they see a lucrative future of weekend gardeners planting out beds and beds of basement-started Podophyllums"
ROFLOL!!!!! Can you even imagine?


How about this slogan:

Save the Heronswoods of the world: Boycott Burpee!

The last time I was there I splurged and bought one of those lovely podophyllums (NOT the basement-started variety). I felt a little guilty spending so much money on one plant, but not anymore. Now I will treasure it even more.
Interestingly, the one I got, a Polophyllum plianthum with great variegation, is not even listed on the website.

Count me in this group. I loved Herronswood. I bought many ferns from them that I was incapable of finding locally and they survived. I also purchased Toad Lilies I couldn't find locally. Their packing and quality of plants was high. They enjoyed a good professional reputation in the community as well as across the United States.

I am very saddened by the means by which Burpee chose to "dismiss" some employees. I understand they have a business to run however what they did to the people who were not allowed to remain for the "closing up of shop" was unconscionable. Jobs are too hard to find these days and a little compassion for the human race could have been shown to these workers by giving them some notice even if it was only 2 weeks. That act, and that act alone speaks volume of Burpee's business practices to me.

I would contribute to a fund for the preservation of the Herronswood Gardens... which would include the re-hiring of those who cared for them.

Ditto, Lauren. There is absolutely no excuse for their actions.

Anyone who fails to see the loss of Heronswood as a loss to the country is as inane as George Ball.

My sympathy to all of us who loved Heronswood and here's hoping Dan and Robert can perform their unique magic again for all of us to enjoy.

Forgive the repost from the NW forum- I know many of us are reading both threads, but I think not all.

Researching who owns who is an awful tangle, but here is a brief google worth. Monsanto owns Seminis own Burpee Holding (was in bankruptcy- don't know current state) owns Burpee owns Heronswood and Cook's Garden. I really do try to balance activism with some manners so instead of telling anyone what to do, I'll leave it with saying that your choices matter and that whatever you choose to support is to that extent increased.

So are you saying that Burpee owns Cook's Garden? I googled this also and found it too confusing. I did read that Ball owns "a rare plant nursery (Heronswwood) and a gourmet seed compnay" (not Burpee) I am imagining.

Well, it's a one two blow. If the loss of Heronswood wasn't bad enough, now I understand that Roslyn Nursery on Long Island is closing.

While I have not bought as much from Roslyn as I have from Herronswood, Roslyn's catalog has been most impressive. Their collection of Rhododendrons and Azaleas alone is world class. A friend of mine bought numerous rhodies last year, and while the prices seemed a little high, we both marveled at the size and quality of the plants he received.

Scott

Now, I'm not so sure. I relayed that information from something I read at another forum, and the poster seemed credible., but now I've gone to Rosyln's website and there is no mention of it closing. So I don't know what to believe.

Scott

I hope it's not true. It's one of those places, just 90 minutes away, that I've been "meaning to get to". One neighbor buys most of her plants there. Please keep us up to date! Thanks.

Oh I hope it's not true also..I have ordered many things over the years and always they have want you can't find elsewhere.

W. Atlee Burpee & Co definitely owns Cook's Garden. It's listed on Dave's "Who Owns What" page and their own website.

Oh, that would be really too bad about Roslyn's! I hope it's not true, but I'm not sure you can tell from the website. When I visited Heronswood's website last, there was no mention of the closing at all. I even call them and there was no change in the voicemail system, but I couldn't get through to a real person. Is Roslyn's owned by Burpee?

Pixy, can you find out if there is a local initiative to do something like Patrick suggested (foundation, whatever) with Heronswood? Maybe we could help find donors or investors via the forum, as long as we're not using Dave's to promote anything commerical.

Guy S.

I watched Ron White the comedian on the Comedy Channel last night. He has a coined line with regard to choosing your mate for life and not making looks the top priority. As he says You can get plastic surgery or fix your teeth, but "You can't fix stupid". I see an analogy here - Heronswood looked good and was so prestigious Ball probably thought he had made a real coup without thinking through the business issues of managing such a boutique business so far from PA. What he did was just about like all the people who bought internet stocks in the 90's and got blown up in 2000.

The popularity of home gardening has lost some of its trendiness and is now on a downhill swing. Sales of plants and perennials have dropped several percent per year for the past 3 years and are projected to continue to decline. Competition-wise even my grocery store is selling perennials and fruiting shrubs now - they don't look like something I'd buy but there they are. Still - what did he think- that sales would continue to advance at double digit rates forever?

What I don't understand is why he didn't put the business back up for sale. Doesn't he understand it can never be the same if its moved? If Burpee has a display garden and research facility in PA that's worth maintaining, why haven't they done anything up till now in the area of unique perennials? I mean besides the 'white' marigold? or the striped tomato that graces their catalog cover this year?
If they didn't keep any staff who is heading off to the Himalayas to discover something new how are they going to stay ahead of large east coast competitors like White Flower Farm or any number of other reputable catalog sources? It might take a couple of years but eventually without any new product input there are other suppliers that will obtain the 6 ft Jack in the Pulpit and "Herronswood" will no longer be unique. If you can't distinguish yourself, price becomes the fall back.

He's a tomato seed selling clodhopper trying to market a fairy princess.

This message was edited Jun 4, 2006 11:52 PM