Get Growing - Heronswood, revisited

A Gardening Blog

Thursday, May 8th, 2008

Posted by Craig Sailor @ 06:16:12 pm

This is my evergreen barberry (with a ceanothus in the background and a few sprigs of rosa glauca mixed in.) It's going crazy right now with arching branches of neon orange blossoms. It's the most intensely flowered barberry I've ever seen.

Well, I have seen another just as stunning: at the fabled Heronswood Nursery in Kingston where I bought mine as a small twig.

Started by plant explorer Dan Hinkley and his partner Robert Jones the small nursery soon grew both in size and world-wide reputation.

But Hinkley and Jones sold Heronswood to Burpee a few years ago with much controversy. Now, the pair have a new home and stunning garden in Indianola.

TNT reporter Debbie Cafazzo and I visited Dan last week and the busy author, lecturer and world traveler graciously gave us a tour of the garden and talked about life post-Heronswood. You can read the story and see my photos in this Saturday's Home&Garden section in the The News Tribune.

Oh, the barberry...Dan (who has one growing in Indianola) told us last week that he collected the seeds for this bush on the same Chilean island that Charles Darwin collected seeds from.

I think I'll name mine "Charlie."

Categories: Gardening News, Flowers

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Craig Sailor is the Arts & Entertainment editor at The News Tribune. Last year he planted his first vegetable garden. Focusing on unusual varieties, “Freak of Nature” returns for 2008 with a new crop of uncommon vegetables and flowers. This year he’ll try yin yang beans, giant pumpkins, blue poppies and mutant sunflowers. He gardens at his North End Tacoma home and sneaks seeds in to his mother’s garden at Willapa Bay when she’s not looking. .

Sue Kidd is the Lifestyle Editor at The News Tribune. She is a devoted vegetable gardener, but otherwise a tragic mess at growing just about anything else. Her current obsessions are growing tomatoes on a trellis and trying to convince all her South Hill neighbors to ditch the chemicals and go green in the garden (they are very suspicious of her). She’ll blog about garden gadgets, the latest garden trends and her current garden disasters. She is also the ringleader for the Home&Garden section, so e-mail her with thoughts/rants/questions/bizarre observations. sue.kidd@thenewstribune.com. Use it.

Contact us at Sue.Kidd@thenewstribune.com Craig.Sailor@thenewstribune.com

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