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Demystifying Heronswood Garden
A trendy word 20 years ago, “demystification” can apply to a surprisingly wide number of ideas, relationships, states or conditions of being and, most often, political, social and even ethnic and cultural realities. Of course, demystification primarily means “taking the mystery out of” any given subject. Therefore, a subject has to be more or less secretive, layered, coded or otherwise mysterious—and ideally in a way that is not obvious. The fact that you think that you know it but, in fact, don’t, is what gives the term its special twist.
One of the great demystifications of the last several generations has taken place with food and cooking. It’s ongoing—as if it has become a cult of sorts. Personally, I feel it started with international airline travel, as well as WWII veterans being exposed to foreign food.
Today’s generation is wondering what, in fact, “cooking” is? Once they realize it is a fairly simple process of chemistry, it becomes clear and therefore, no longer the subject of “secret recipes”, et al.
On the other hand, a great challenge ahead of our society is to demystify foreign cultures. For example, one would think that Europeans are very interested in food; that it is a central part of their life, and that they dwell on it even more than we do here in America. In fact, it is the exact opposite. Europeans are not the least bit obsessed with food, per se, as we are. For example, the French hardly give it a second thought and, similarly, the Italians take food for granted. Paradoxically, they “eat to live”, while it is the Americans who are the prime example of a culture who “lives to eat”.
Another example of demystification is the average immigrant from Mexico. To illustrate, I once observed what we often call Mexican workers or “laborers”, at a job site on a farm, where we occasionally bring in crews on short notice for fast or unexpected projects.
They were gardening near a barn that had a small addition perpendicular to it. As usual, they were quietly and diligently working. Suddenly a rabbit appeared, as it turned out, in the proverbial “wrong place and wrong time”. Instantly the three young men (they couldn’t have been more than 19 years old) set a triangular formation and slowly moved in on their prey. They hardly said a word and within a few seconds the rabbit had literally flown in to one of the Mexican’s hands, like a line drive to a shortstop. I was so astounded I don’t remember exactly how the rest of the scene finished up. There was much happy laughter, and the rabbit was killed probably by having its neck broken, bagged and put in their old car. Homemade tortillas and rabbit stew!
Try to find a couple of US teenagers even remotely capable of doing such a thing.
Mexicans are primarily of Native American descent. They have about as much to do with Spain as a Navajo or Apache has to do with England. While most people would acknowledge this consciously, they don’t really know it. Also, they are ignorant of the fact that the average immigrant worker from Mexico is extraordinarily productive due to a strong work ethic that runs deep in their culture. Also, they grew up in towns and villages mainly in the northern half of Mexico which roughly corresponds to our Deep South, as if the two areas were mirror images bisected at the base by the US/Mexico border. A “farm” to them is what we would call a large garden. Therefore, they understand seeds, plants, shrubs, trees, soil and water to the extent or in the way that US kids understand computers and video games—maybe better.
This demystification process applies broadly and deeply to the public image of the original site of Heronswood Nursery, now our Heronswood Northwest Research Garden. Most people—in fact virtually everyone—thinks that the Kingston, Washington, garden is a sort of elaborate construction of multi-faceted spaces intertwined and dove-tailed together to create an almost Alice In Wonderland effect, or three-dimensional Arabesque.
These fey images are only partly true and pertain to only one or two sections of the entire estate. And, while it is certainly a beautiful garden, there is a deeper—and quite simpler—meaning beneath the much-celebrated “mystery” of the original Heronswood Garden.
In fact, what happened was a couple of people bought a long rectangular piece of land, 90% of it under a canopy of tall Douglas Firs, cleared out the underbrush and trucked in large amounts of manure, compost, and other organic matter to create an extraordinarily deep humus soil. They did this periodically so that it would naturally layer above the typical—and ideal for gardening—sandy soil that is found throughout the shoreline areas of the Pacific northwest.
In other words, they created a staging area, with particularly excellent drainage, for a large collectors’ shade garden.
The rest of the story is equally simple. Following a wide-ranging interest in all sorts of different plants, they made a few trips around the world every couple of years for a decade or so, and then just plopped the plants in the ground. That is really all it is, as a garden.
However, one of the guys was an architect who created an interesting series of small and variable geometric structures such as circular terraces, quadrangles, and a long curving oriental pergola, finally building a small house at the back end of the property, paneled with local hardwoods.
Twenty years later the nearly perfect conditions of the eastern side of the Olympic Peninsula have helped to create a horticultural paradise of about 6,000 taxa (genera and species) represented by a total of nearly 10,000 plants in an area little more than 6 acres.
So, like the diamond that starts out as a lump of coal, there is really nothing mysterious, secretive or difficult to understand about the original Heronswood garden. Its only complex spaces result from a network of narrow trails that weave through the splendid plant collection in the 4 acre core garden, called “The Big Bang”.
Finally, the other key to the “secret” of the garden is that it is highly successional in nature. If you walk through it one month, it is one garden; another month, it is a different garden. Of course, this temporal diversity becomes wider over the three main seasonal periods, resulting in about “8-10 gardens” on one property.
Therefore, give yourself 10 or 15 years, collect—or buy from the locals—plants from various countries that have a climate similar to yours. But, most important, choose a site that has good drainage and build a deep base of soil by just hauling it in, as the original owners did. If you are in the shade, you’ll need a different set of plants than if you are in the sun, but the idea is the same.
It is no mystery.
I don’t know when I began getting these newsletters but they are wonderfully interesting. I loved the root/fungus symbiosis described in an earlier letter. The description of the evolution of Heronswood garden is a treasure. It lets us know that we’re all on the right path. Cheers, Anne
Dear Anne,
Thanks very much for the kind words. If you are on the east coast, you can visit the many gardens we have (about 15 in all) at our historic estate, Fordhook Farm. It is the new (since 2006) home of Heronswood’s display gardens, although we also test in several other locations. We haven’t quite as many intricate paths as we do in Kingston, but Fordhook’s are much longer. So, either place, you’ll enjoy yourself.
Thanks again,
I had been building soil, with the help of our Welsh ponies, and searching out interesting plants wherever I happened to be. My property was coming along nicely until an unusual flood washed away much of my work, soil included. But by the time this occurred, we had sold our ponies, our daughter would have never left home for college if we had kept them, as a result I have had to purchase soil in order to rebuild. I find that I have a real respect for those few plants that had been able to hang on. It was fascinating to see the extensive root structure of one of the peonies that enabled it to grab on while everything around it was swept away.
Dear Rebecca,
What an interesting, poignant and evocative post! It reminded me of the story of Bellingrath Gardens after a famous hurricane swept through and tore a lot of the trees and shrubs out of the ground. It was a root specialist’s paradise for the following year. Scientists came from around the world to study the never-seen-before rare specimen root systems.
Thanks and please post again anytime.
It seems that the original Heronswood has become a mystery to us Washingtonian’s who used to visit there, walk the trails and buy plants during their periodic “open houses”. It seems that those opportunities are no longer available, and it has become a memory to those that used to visit. We had a garden of many plants- trilliums, epimediums, etc., which we had admired and purchased at Herronswood, a place we no longer have access to.
Dear Pat
The only activity that is missing, as you point out, is on-site purchases of plants. We actually expanded on-site sale greatly from 2000, when we purchased the nursery, to 2006 when we moved its operations to several new facilities on the east coast. However, as you may know, Heronswood has always been mainly a mail order and Internet nursery, and has continued selling excellent new and “unusually great” plants since the relocation and expansion in 2006. But, the gardens themselves have been lovingly tended by Heronswood staff. Only a few research specimens for adaptability study in different climates have been relocated. We—and the previous owners—always harvested cuttings for propagation and continue to do so. The Gardens remain spectacular as ever.
Hope this helps clear up the mystery for you.
Thanks again
Mr. Ball:
I visited the “old Heronswood’ GARDEN twice this summer. I felt as tho it had been raped and left to rot. Most of the interesting plants that had been collected and or developed by Dan Hinckley were gone, replaced with nothing; Tags all gone and the garden ill cared for. My question to you is how could you trash such a magnificent endeavor????
Shame on you!
Delia Van Brunt
Dear Delia,
“A gentleman neither gives offense nor takes it”
Thank you so much for sharing yourselves and your mission. Unusual plants, unusual blog, wonderful results.
Dear Susan,
Thank you for your kind thoughts.
Thank you for a very insightful explanation of Heronswood. I hope to visit some day and experience the various geometric spaces.
Dear Suz,
We plan to have a few more Open Days again in Kingston next year. At Fordhook, our “Heronswood East” Opens are scheduled in late spring to early fall. That is when the seasonal display is best and weather is generally fine. However, in Kingston the gardens start blooming in the late January and early February period on through to mid November—an extraordinary length of season. Scheduling one-day public events has been tough since we run it now only as a research garden. We held 3 opens in 2009. We shall be able to hold a few more, both earlier and later, in 2010.
Thank you for your interest,
Can we still visit the Washington garden? Was that Kitsap community project back in 2006 that was trying to preserve it successful?
Dear Nina
Yes to the first question and no, somewhat to the second. Had PNHC been successful, they may have ultimately (or even quickly) failed. But their hearts, I believe, were in the right place.
I have announced many times on my blog and the Heronswood Nursery site has also announced, the several Garden Conservancy Open Days that we hold—and have held—at the original Heronswood Garden in Kingston since 2006. The dates next year will be listed in due course. I assume you live nearby, so if you don’t read this blog regularly, please check your local media.
Regarding your 2nd question, the story of PNHC has also been discussed and summarized here and here
and finally here.
Thank you and please visit the Kingston gardens during our 2010 Open Houses.
Any true gardener who visited Herronswood while Dan Hinkley was in charge came away with a sense of awe, wonder and yes, mystery. The gardens were magical, and the open days which combined sales, tours, fundraisers, speakers, garden consultations, and problem solving, filled gardeners with excitement and insight and engendered garden companionship and stewardship. We loved the gardens, and we miss them.
To have this magic reduced to “two guys bought some property, hauled in soil and a few plants, and then built a couple of buildings” is a travesty and does a grave disservice to the garden founders and the large number of garden visitors who felt that they shared the magic of the gardens. I’ll keep the magic and the mystery in my heart and mind as I am sure you will keep demystifying and destroying other beautiful places and feelings.
Dear Pat – Thank you for your post. I am sorry that you misunderstood the “demystification” approach I took in my last blog. For sincere, heartfelt approbations of both Dan’s and Robert’s abilities and contributions, please see Kingston Tide, Magic Hats, and West Coast Layers Of Meaning. I doubt many other bloggers have been as acutely effusive in my praise of the former owners as I have. But life is not about praise, is it?.
Therefore, I thought to take a simpler approach just for a change of light. “Vary the line“ as Bernard Berenson said. Repeating oneself in a blog is apparently as big a “no-no”, as it is in art.
I also find it a bit insulting that you suggest that we—or I—have destroyed anything other than your free access to the gardens and nursery. Ironically, the “free”, or public access part was begun under our ownership, not the previous one. Before 2000, the nursery and garden were limited to appointment only and occasional Opens, only slightly more than we hold today. I assume you are, therefore, a veteran “heronista”.
However, you are right to point out the termination of the Kingston-based classes, seminars and other social events that were held, again ironically, with greater frequency during our ownership (from 2000 onward). We supported a great expansion of facilities, staff and cash flow into the company during the 2000 – 2006 periods. We, too, helped create the “magic and mystery”, though we certainly didn’t create it, as I’ve said many times. We merely paid for it.
Nevertheless, your spirits – and that of some others in the Kingston area – are broken, and for that I apologize. I would not support a limited and extremely expensive business in perpetuity.
In order to save the company, I had to relocate operations to Pennsylvania. Dan and Robert were retained, with appropriately lucrative contracts, for over five years, after being paid generously for their business. Why you and a few others feel it necessary to continue to incriminate us after we have preserved the gardens and continued to make them available to the public via The Garden Conservancy – with the latter receiving nationwide Open Day program support, plus the proceeds – is beyond my understanding.
I suggest Bill Monroe, the early years especially; or Nick Lucas (‘Painting the Clouds With Sunshine’) to help sooth your obvious heartbreak.
I also remind myself, but for the sake of us both, the elegant Dale Carnegie quote, “A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still”. From the chapter, “You Can’t Win An Argument” in his famous book How To Win Friends And Influence People.
Thanks again for posting. Please enjoy the gardens during the 2010 Open Day programs at our newly christened Heronswood Northwest Research Garden.
LOL, boy you can be wordy until you get to the truck of the story.
I have visited Heronswood just a year prior to Burpee take over.
And while I do understand the history of it. What made it so was the owner, and his passion for seeking out the unusual. I have been to your “open house gardens” in Doyestown, PA. And saw Hydranga in a zone not for this area for sale, asking why would you put one out there, if only for the unknowledgeable perhaps???.
I will still miss the original Heronswood.
Dear Esther – I had a friend once who liked only two drinks: Colt 45 or any other “malt liquor”, as the fortified beers are called, and port wine. The first was for casual drinking and the second on formal occasions. I asked her why and she simply said she liked their taste. She was, of course, an alcoholic, now fully recovered. But that’s what they all say. Ironically, they don’t like the drinking part. It may as well have been a pill.
I, on the other hand, drank ordinary beer and, on occasion, ordinary wine. Why? I like to drink – the process, I mean. As one ages, one stops regular daily consumption, and I did the same, in a sense. But I still enjoy the simple act of drinking. Like drinking water, it feels good. Drink hard stuff and you don’t drink for long.
It is the same with writing. Obviously, I enjoy it. So, yes, I have a long wind-up. I guess my readers like to read.
My question to you is, with such a keen sense of observation, would you please share with us the identity of the questionable hydrangea you saw at the Fordhook Open Days? We sell, of course, to a much wider region now. Also, Fordhook is a working research farm, not simply a display garden, so you may have seen a hydrangea that was being monitored for zone adaptability, or verification of same.
Thank you for your thoughtful post. And I hope you don’t forget to visit us again – on both coasts – in 2010.
SERVING GOD AND MAMMON TOO.
Reading some comments, I am reminded how difficult it is to integrate economics with beauty and can identify with Mr. Ball’s predicament – and the hurt and anger of his critics.
The tragic truth is that the pursuit of beauty for just beauty’s sake can cripple the pursuer. In publishing, cinema, theater, and yes, in beloved landscapes too, there is either a patron behind the scenes who underwrites the process — or an entrepreneur who is trying to break even and turn a small profit so that the place can be kept in good repair and accessible to the public.
Siddhartha Banerjee
Oxford, Pa
Dear Mr. Banerjee,
As a business owner in a science-related industry, I actually serve neither God nor Mammon, but rather the so-called “gray area” that exists—not between them—but outside them. God took care of me long ago and now I take care of Him. Mammon has never been a distraction. I serve at the behest of the scientific method, which answers questions and solves problems. “What is beauty?”, must be answered by my customers. And they shall have it—that is my job. It is an infinitely complex question, and one that I am glad—indeed, blessed—to be able to try to answer.
Thank you for your thoughtful post.