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Casual Gardens
I recently spoke with an old friend from Seattle. She said that she actually preferred the Heronswood display garden in Kingston now as opposed to its formerly pristine condition. She wasn’t expressing an offbeat, funky taste. On the contrary, both she and her companion, who visited in September, told me they appreciated the more realistic conditions of not only the woodland rainforest recreation, but also the many beds flanking the sides of the main garden and house. If the trees and shrubs were dropping petals, seeds, berries or catkins, they were thereby revealing some of their typical characteristics. So long as nothing was nasty or ugly, there was no objection to the loose and casual look. Indeed, my friend said the “lived in” appearance of the estate—renowned for, among other things, its Disney World style of orderliness, perfection and cleanliness—appealed more to her than it had on previous visits.
Her response was not only as refreshing as a cool washcloth across the forehead, but also dead-on about the correctness of maintaining normal conditions in a test garden in order to show how the plants perform in a general customer setting. Of course, there are folks who maintain their gardens by using several full time gardeners, and others who spend all their spare time keeping thousands of plants in perfect shape. But there are more who do not do so. They may appreciate a more true-to-life demonstration garden.
Perhaps it is not coincidental that most of the criticism of our changes at the Kingston gardens has come from folks in the public garden sector. Much of their experience, and indeed all of their leaders, derive from immaculately clean and manicured research, education and amusement gardens maintained by substantial professional organizations and large cadres of volunteers. However, this criticism is off the mark. Heronswood is a private company. It’s supposed to make a profit by providing value to its customers, not spending money to attract visitors.
Private specialty nurseries do not have the luxury of keeping their grounds in a perfect state. Not even close. Furthermore, I think it would be unwise of them to insist on trying to do so, especially with their typical display beds. The customers want to see healthy plants but not necessarily unrealistic and artificial gardens.
I remember hearing a story from an old friend who worked for many years at Ford. He said that in the car clinics (now called “focus groups”) that they used to run to measure potential customer perception, they would always be cautious of the reactions of the “gearheads”, the fanatical car buffs. If they raved about something, it was always commercially unfeasible. He told me this somewhat wistfully. Super cars and “exotics” simply do not sell in anything close to a normal volume. Similarly, if a garden is “perfect”, the everyday gardener is certainly impressed by the perfection. And the true believers become ecstatic. However, no information about the “real world” performance of the plant, shrub or tree is being conveyed to anyone. The visitors do not learn anything. They’re merely impressed. Frankly, that’s the easy part. The challenge is giving the customers something new, or telling them something they didn’t know.
THIS JUST IN
A recent blog at the Seattle PI accused us of causing “some of the nearby specialty gardens” in the Kitsap area to “close” as a result of our relocation to Pennsylvania. The truth is likely that if any nurseries have closed, they have done so for their own reasons. First, we had a media day in the spring, and a big open house in July. We may repeat them in 2008.
Second, we held a Wholesale Open House for over a week last October (2006) to sell our non-movable surplus nursery plants. In other words, we sold thousands of zone 8-11 cultivars we knew would do well only in the Pacific Northwest to local nurseries for pennies on the dollar. Most of this salable inventory went to the nurseries in the immediate area. One of the nurseries is even using our blue labels! Therefore, it is impossible that our relocation caused any of these businesses to fail. If anything, it created an opportunity for them to pick up the slack.
Contrary to other gossip, we have several gardeners on staff in Washington state. Another will soon be moving from Pennsylvania to join them and also to continue our ongoing and excellent zone 8 adaptation research. This is being conducted by Heronswood staff in Kingston and Fordhook as well as in conjunction with Simon Crawford at our new facility in the UK. These efforts reflect our commitment to Heronswood customers in the Pacific Northwest as well as across the rest of the nation. Our new catalog ships in two weeks. It’s going to be an exciting 2008!
Finally, winter may be a “down time” for the Kingston property, but by no means are we neglecting the plants, as several bloggers have said. In fact, we just completed the first physical inventory of the garden in many years. We are monitoring the plants’ health and cataloguing every single entry to the beautiful rare plant collection. In due course we shall find an appropriate buyer.