Essays – Daniel J. Hinkley

New Zealand; Incredible Flora, Fantastic Fauna and Horticultural Genius

June 25, 2026 By Daniel J. Hinkley

Earthbound Expedition; January 20-February 3rd, 2027

The iconic lancewoods, Pseudopanax ferox and P. crassifolius, are encountered on both islands and are cherished for their unique textural qualities by keen gardeners throughout New Zealand. They are believed to have evolved their unusual tough-as-steel foliage in defense of the now-extinct flightless birds known as Moas, the only grazing animals on the islands prior to the arrival of the Polynesians, now the Māori, about 700 years ago.

Phormium, or the New Zealand Flax, is a plant easily recognized- by its broad, strappy upright foliage- and is indispensable to gardeners in temperate climates across the globe. Growing here at Windcliff, there are few plants that add such exclamative value to any plant combination. It is seen growing throughout New Zealand, often in standing water! (don’t try this at home)

Continentally Denied

Those two large emerald rafts, the North and South Islands, positioned 1,250 miles east of Australia have been geologically excluded from the Continental Club, though little has been lost in terms of the perks that go along with that designation. They are, in truth, the tips of a large but mostly submerged land mass known as Zeelandia. I might call them incontinent however, at 73 years old, that hits a little too close to home None-the-matter as its magnificent geography and mild temperate climate has resulted in unique lifeforms found no where else on Earth. Conjoined with the opulent and proud indigenous culture of the Māori and a nation-wide community of keen gardeners, it all makes for a visually and mentally titillating mid-winter escape from the depths of our winter.

Mountain peaks reflected in calm water under a bright blue sky.

The fjords of the southwestern coastline of the South Island are considered by many well-seasoned travelers to be amongst the most beautiful of landscapes on our planet, with snow covered mountains plunging steeply to pristine salt water passages and estuaries.

If you wish an easy visual primer to the flora of these lands down under, you may, of course, watch the three installments of the Lord of the Rings, filmed nearly in its entirety throughout this island nation. The evergreen forests of the Antarctic Beech (five species, once classified as Nothofagus and now reclassified as Fuscospora and Lophozonia) create the penultimate and dreamily bucolic Middle Earth (sans Sauron, the Dark Lord, of course). Missing in this landscape, however, will be Athelas, the mythical herb that saved Frodo from his unsavory hook-up with a Morgul-blade. Not to worry; over-the-counter antibiotic ointments are readily available at pharmacies still fully owned and operated by Elves.

The Southern Beech Forests of both the North and South Islands provide magical hikes in a landscape brought to life in the writings of J.R.R. Tolkien.

Kauri; Kings of the Forest

This narrow but long slice of island real estate spans about 1000 miles between the parallels of 34 degrees S and 47 degrees S latitudes, equivalent to North Carolina to Montreal, though its temperate climate is due to the East Australian Current which bathes the landmass with warm, subtropical water. To the far north on the North Island grows Agathis australis, among the largest trees on Earth. Known as Kauri by the Māori culture, they possess a deep cultural and spiritual significance to the first human inhabitants of the islands. Many of the most massive of trees have been given individual names including Tāne Mahuta, Lord of the Forest.

The massive conifer native to New Zealand, Agathis australis, or the Kauri.

But Wait, There’s More!

I have not even touched on the many extraordinary trees, shrubs, grasses and ferns that grow in my garden at Windcliff that hail from this remote wonderment down under. Not to mention birds, none of which grow in my garden at Windcliff! Many of these I expect to encounter on our drives through both islands next January and February.

The largest Fuchsia species on Earth, Fuchsia excorticata, is seen growing throughout New Zealand, though more prevalent on the South Island.

The only alpine parrot in the world, the beautiful, intelligent and mischievous Kea greeted (and tormented) me on Arthur’s Pass on the South Island during my last trip to New Zealand. Watch your camera gear and wiper blades on your cars!

Most excitingly, however, will be the opportunity to visit the best gardens of New Zealand and witness how they employ their own natives as well as traditional European/American garden plants in their singular style. Sampling the native flora along the route, we will be welcomed to the designs of Kiwi trendsetters as well as longtime masters in the craft of hands-in-the-dirt garden-making.

The Giants House, near Christchurch, is a historic and amazing creation of terraces, sculptures and mosaics.

Europe meets Central America meets New Zealand; garden vignettes down under are often an original concoction of the expected with the unknown. In this temperate climate, an eye catching trio with Phlomis russeliana to the fore, the pendulous trumpets of Brugmansia above and the brilliant crimson flowers of New Zealand’s Christmas Tree or Rātā, Metrosideros umbellata.

An ability to create artful combinations thoughtfully married to breathtaking landscapes seems to be a common thread that runs through New Zealand’s horticultural community. Here, Fisherman’s Bay, another fantastical garden we will visit next winter.

As one ring bearer once told another, “it is a risky business, Frodo, leaving your home every morning. You never know exactly where your feet are going to take you”. This is certainly ‘rings’ true for anyone wishing to transport themselves to high summer in January to explore the botanical wonders of a far away land isolated in the South Pacific. I invite you to join me for my fourth adventure to one of the most remarkable horticultural and botanical experiences imaginable. DJH 6/26/26

https://earthboundexpeditions.com/2027-new-zealand-hinkley

The Unimaginable Zero Winter

January 5, 2026 By Daniel J. Hinkley

*Polygonatum tessellatum, collected in northern Myanmar with Shayne Chandler in 2013, is offering an atypical evergreenosity this year, along with an opulent crop of bright red fruit.*

Though an amended ripoff from T.S. Elliot’s Little Gidding, shared sentiments of our respective Unimaginable seasons stuck in place like cars on an icy hill are quite similar. His were the days of a seized-up late winter while waiting for spring that seemingly would not come. Mine are the dark and soggy, alternating with blinding sun; a late autumn caught in an endless loop between the high thirties and mid forties.

A rather large collection of Begonia species at Windcliff are, on January 3rd, 2026, providing an unexpected, never-before-experienced season of backlit foliage.

If this was our norm, I would not be pushing quite so hard to liberate our bottomed-out autumn from the deep ruts of a muddy road. The days are getting only minusculely longer, but minusculely enough for those clever plants of mine to notice. The flower buds of too many shrubs and trees are being seduced and juiced into growth two months too early. Galanthus and hellebores are in full blossom. Begonias and the hardy gingers (Hedychium) are still in active growth. It will take only a minor aerial operation through the Fraser Valley of British Columbia to do seriously bad things.

Edgeworthia chrysantha ‘Windcliff Sunrise’ is a second generation seedling selection from my original collection from NE Sichuan in 2004. It has always blossomed significantly earlier than the more frequently offered forms of this species in commerce, however showing color by New Years Day is a first in our garden in Indianola, WA.

My husband will confirm those things you have always suspected of me. Whatever is happening in my garden, at this precise moment, I want….the polar opposite of things that exist, Kevetch about weather? I just can’t resist, the Pacific Northwest where the rains they are legend as long as you really don’t live here I reckon to see that our soils become dusty dry, (by June if we’re lucky) with smoke in the sky, and our winters are mild… “Right!”, said with a grimace, as the garden gets smaller, no plant with much bigness, and then when it rains, well it comes in a river and measured by feet or at times by the meter. DJH

The early winter flowers of Polyspora longicarpa from northern Vietnam (left)are frequently damaged by early freezes while Steve Hootman’s collection of Polyspora speciosa from Guangxi Province, PRC (right) is generally more resistant to moderate frosts. Both are providing a sensational, extended showing this year. (note to Steve; mine is bigger)

An unexpected and generous harvest of Yuzu (Citrus juno) from our garden specimen on December 27th, makings for enough marmalade to last a few days. Robert eats a lot of marmalade…….

I have tried to get things in order but I have failed. (I can’t do this alone, people!) Today, on January 4th, two days before the shameful anniversary of January 6th, when our Resident-in-Thief began his systematic dismantling of our constitutional democracy, I surrender to what will come by way of a vastly-human-altered and capricious climate. It is windy but warm, the fragrances of Daphne and Sarcococca are aloft, and the sun

Reflecting in a watery mirror
A glare that is blindness in the early afternoon.
And glow more intense than blaze of branch, or brazier, T.S. Elliot

Robert and I, along with the staff and volunteers at Windcliff, wish you all the best gardening of your life in the months ahead in this new year. DJH 1/4/26

Windcliff Plants (updated inventory here) is available to visitors by appointment Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays (which can easily be scheduled by emailing windcliff2@centurytel.net ). If you are visiting for a specific plant, please ask regarding its current availability prior to your visit. Additionally, a selection of our plants are for sale exclusively at Heronswood, Ravenna Gardens of University Village in Seattle, Crazy Hill Gardens and Botanicals in Belfair and Bay Hay and Feed on Bainbridge Island.

Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered

October 28, 2025 By Daniel J. Hinkley

An ‘Admiration Point’ in the rethunk front meadow at Windcliff, Oct 21st, 2025

I’ve been spending much too much time in conversation with myself, discussing in depth my overall brilliance while walking the garden together in late afternoon light while later terrifying young children in the dark before offering them a small bar of chocolate-flavored wax. In between I’ve been pointing out to neighbors that, unlike them, I am rather intelligent. Opportunities abound in October.

‘The Last of Us’. An interpretive dance performed by Hamamelis x intermedia ‘Jelena’ while being eaten alive by its own rootstock, Hamamelis virginiana.

For example. Consider stopping by next door to happily reveal that the witch hazel they had planted three years ago has been corrupted by graft and incompetence which, you continue, is sadly mirrored by a confederacy of charlatans and crooks selling bibles, tennis shoes and bitcoin to clueless sheep. (You need not include the commentary; as a rule, I always stick clear of politics) You may explain that the red and orange flowering cultivars are the easiest to spot ( they possess a corresponding autumnal color that even common people like themselves can readily see) and that even the cultivars with golden autumn color will generally give themselves up by turning earlier or later and often with a differing size and texture than the foliage of the rootstock.

The unprepossessing flowers of Hamamelis virginiana appear in November and December, making it the last or first flowering plant of the northern temperate zones of North America. The appearance of these flowers is another way to determine if your witch hazel has been ‘infected’…

The devil from down under is Hamamelis virginiana, the common witch hazel native to eastern North America and the rootstock of choice for grafting witch hazels in the nursery industry. Suggest to the kindly folk that they set down the 3pm negroni and immediately take up arms to remove the growth of the rootstock as far down as they can. You will remind them that, yes, it will regrow next spring but that they will be smarter by then as they have just started taking Prevegen.

You might attempt to explain to them that if they wait for another month, the undesirable rootstock will actually be in blossom and they COULD wait until then to remove the growth from the rootstock and bring the stems inside for a wee dash of early winter fragrance in a vase. But you know in your heart of hearts that they truly have absolutely no idea what you are talking about and will in all likelihood cut the wrong part out if they do anything at all which they probably won’t. They have already asked you if you would like a negroni.

Hamamelis x intermedia ‘Aphrodite’ blossoming late January at Windcliff; like ‘Jelena’, it undresses in brilliant tones of orange and red which echo its flower color.

Most of the world seems to be melting in madness, so am finding myself at times ashamed that I am privileged to enjoy the smack and piquancy of autumn in my garden, and even enjoy luxuriously long conversations with myself, while living things die needlessly by the political calculus of tyrants and monsters. Yet closer in, the architecture of spider webs, the vocalizations of migrating loons on the Salish Sea, or hummingbirds fattening on fuchsias before the first freeze, is enough to understand that the injuries we have brought upon us are just specks of dust amidst a nebula of future stars.

DJH 10/24/25

Care For a Small Barge?

I will be hosting a tour through the spring gardens of The Netherlands and Belgium from April 28th to May 7th, 2026, through the inimitable agency of Earthbound Expeditions. With only 30 people on a small yet very comfortable barge, we will navigate the canals and locks of these lowland countries while exploring nearby horticultural gems at the height of spring bulb season. This is going to be fun! And you only unpack your bags 1 time!!!!! www.earthboundexpeditions.com

The Migration of Madrone

September 26, 2025 By Daniel J. Hinkley

On a single evening just before the first rains of autumn, a cyclonic swarming of termites from thousands of colonies takes to the air. While legions of losers uber across town into eternity, a few successful pairings settle down to ultimately eat your house. Butterflies drawn by invisible cues for thousands of miles, across lakes, mountains and deserts never before seen, arrive together en masse to a few hundred fir trees in Central Mexico. A million Sandhill Cranes constringe along a small length of the Platte River near Kearney, Nebraska over ten days in late March. And murmurations of starlings appear at dusk in choreographed, shape-shifting, fluid clouds above the Edmonds Ferry Terminal in late summer. Just a fraction of the highly predictable, byzantine synchronicities of the natural world that shifts me to that state of non-self.

Sandhill Crane Migration, Kearney, Nebraska, March 16th, 2025

Monarchs on Abies religiosa awakening to the first rays of sun in Michoacán, western Mexico, February, 2022

These orchestrations are hardly confined to the poster children of the peregrinate. There are the horned and hoofed, spined or -like trumpeting sycophants- spineless, winged or apterous. All going somewhere in particular or nowhere at all, all at once and always in a hurry. This brings me, admittedly in incongruous fashion, to our most iconic native tree species that guards the bluff edges at Windcliff.

A bird’s eye view of the bluff edge at Windcliff, with Arbutus meniziesii holding it all together, literally and figuratively. Photo Credit; Claire Takacs.

As the Baobab to Madagasgar or the Coconut to tropical islands, there is no tree that more visually brandishes itself to the Pacific Northwest than our beloved Madrona. It was ḰEḰEYIȽĆ to the Saanich People of southern Vancouver Island, a sacred tree to which their canoes were tethered during the great flood. In 1769, the Spanish missionary Juan Crespi was sufficiently schooled in botany to note its resemblance to the Mediterranean Strawberry Tree (Arbutus unedo) and dubbed it Madroño. George Vancouver’s voyage into the Straits of San Juan de Fuca in 1792 carried aboard English botanist Archibald Menzies who returned with a tree that would ultimately be named Arbutus menziesii in his honor.

Sixty four years later, in 1857, cartographer and U.S. Lieutenant George Davidson mistook the identity of the same tree while referencing a peninsula in the Puget Sound as Magnolia Bluff, lying directly southeast of our garden. To this day, this misnomer sallies forth in the significantly-sized Seattle neighborhood of Magnolia.

Davidson was an undeniably brilliant surveyor yet out of his depth botanically while out of his mind in love with a young Ms. Elinor Fauntleroy. In an attempt to curry favor with his future father-in-law, he named all things observable after someone in their family, including Fauntleroy Cove, as well as, in the Olympic Range, Mt. Elinor (his betrothed), Mt. Constance (his future sister-in-law), Mt. Rose (another sister-in-law) and The Brothers (two additional sisters of the betrothed who were, at the time, transitioning)(that is not true)(to the best of my knowledge). So, in actuality, our dendrologicaly-annointed Seattle neighborhood could have easily enough honored in perpetuity a pervy Fauntleroy uncle.

Our beloved Madronas. They change by the hour and by the day and through the seasons. In every interaction, you are introduced to a new tree, never before seen or even remotely imagined, like the recent attempts at rewriting 275 years of American democracy. Though most scintillating during the sunrise and sunset hours, through a window it can by itself warm the room of a chilled and swampy December day.

Dawn

Dusk

April (photo credit; Flower Essence Services)

The ureolate or urn-shaped flowers are a signature floral type of the Ericaceae, an enormous assemblage of horticulturally significant plants including Pieris, Rhododendron, heaths and heathers and the very closely related manzanitas in the genus Arctostaphylos. Chief pollinators include hummingbirds, native bees and honey bees and the spring azure butterfly. The nectar and pollen rich flowers are designed perfectly for a strategy known as ‘buzz pollination’, in which bumblebees in particular dislodge pollen through vibration of their wings.

October

On a good year, the Pacific Madrone can be weighted with succulent, red, rough-textured berries and swarmed by frenzied flocks of frugivorous and omnivorous birds alike. We have been entranced while watching wind-hovering seagulls kite in gale force winds above the bluff while gluttonously plucking fruit on the wing.

Arbutus menziesii preparing to shed its rusty-colored shards of aging skin.

As stately, as imposing and as sacred as they might be, Madronas are ALWAYS losing themselves, whether it be branches, leaves, flowers or fruit. But in that vein, on one day each year, when the conditions are just right, we witness something remarkable. It is something one hears before seeing, a rattly gurgle that I mistaken repeatedly as a gushing broken irrigation line. The sound draws my eyes to its source which seems to build to a crescendo in only a matter of seconds.

And then it goes sort of like this:

The night before I was to graduate from Michigan State University in 1976, I stayed up all night with a devilishly handsome and mischievous sprite of a man named Baron Munchausen. Despite the ridiculously high odds that this is a lie, indeed that very thing for which his namesake was discreditably known, it is in all aspects a true story. Just before dawn we had somehow arrived to the Woldumar Wetlands and hiked along a trail to the edge of an expansive cattail marsh. In late May, it was filled with only the remnants of last year’s growth. The precise moment the surrounding landscape was flooded by the first ray of sun on that morning of my graduation, an unheard snap or bark or splash ignited a concatenation of thousands of roosting red-winged blackbirds that lifted in unison into an opulent gilded light.

Like a pre-thunk flight of birds or butterflies or deliberated cyclones of termites, our Madrone lets loose its skin in a whoosh and whirl to the air, like a direct hit to a piñata by a school house bully. And why I find this so remarkable is probably the same reason so many find me unremarkable. My tree has scattered its skin to the entirety of the garden and beyond, carrying with it in one magnificent holy flight not only its own substance, but those countless things upon which they grow, an inoculation, a migration of my beloved tree and all that belongs on her.

DJH 9/26/25

The garden has been enlivened by cooler temperatures, shortening days and a wee bit of precipitation . We feel it is worthy of a wander and wonder, and we look forward to seeing you here.

Rinse/Repeat

August 3, 2025 By Daniel J. Hinkley

The third of August is a memorable date; Robert’s and my anniversary and the birthdate of our beloved ten-year-old goldendoodle, Babu. It is the day that Christopher Columbus set sail on his iconic voyage, Germany declared war on France and, in 1527, John Rut sent the first letter (in English) from North America. Addressed to Tripadvisor, it simply read “Unfriendly receptionist, really bad saran-covered red delicious apples at the breakfast buffet”.

Our Soulful-Eyed Birthday Boy

After weeks of warm, extremely dry conditions, we welcomed this morning a long stretch of heavy marine clouds with temperatures barely piercing 70F. The air is dead still, the Salish Sea is dead calm, and most plants outside of our zone of perpetual irrigation have shuffled off this mortal coil. Our local and knowledgable meteorologist has predicted the drought will extend for many weeks ahead. He was then fired and sent to southern Sudan. And our native Big-Leaf Maples (Acer macrophyllum) have developed a severe case of powdery mildew. This, along with several millimeters of road dust covering virtually all living and sincerely deceased things along the lane leading to our home, provides a rather ethereal effect on moonlit nights.

Acer macrophyllum in early August sporedom

My decision to convert the majority of our front bluff to a grassy ‘meadow’ has sadly coincided with a fissionable density of rabbits. Unbeknownst to those less scientifically gifted as I, if only one more rabbit should somehow be added to the already highly enriched population, our entire Universe will explode. And then, that insufferable wait for things to reorganize, like renting a car at Hertz. These rodents are catholic in their tastes but seem particularly drawn to dense, orange-colored nobs. I employ live traps and send them by overnight FedX to 1600 Pennsylvania Blvd NW 20500.

Despite the challenges, it seems as if some plants have decided to grow none-the-less. What was covered by 10 ml plastic less than a year ago, the perennials I had hoped would comingle with grasses are settling in rather well, rising above mown-off shards of Poa cita, Festuca mairei, Andropogon gerardii and Schizachrium scoparium. But for a few whisps of Stipa gigantea still in flower, I will have to wait until 2026 for my envisioned sassy grassy effect to launch.

The front bluff sans any apparent grasses with Agapanthus ‘Quink Drops’ (from UK nurseryman Graham Gough), along with my favorite of the Goldenrods, Solidago rugosa ‘Loysder Crown’ and the indispensible Alstroemeria ‘Indian Summer’

This year I have continued my exploration of the genus Nolana, a congregation of mostly annuals in the potato family, Solanaceae, hailing from Chile and Argentina. Not particularly foolproof from seed, if established in a well draining and sunny position, there are few annuals that might easily compete with their floral effects that extend throughout summer through late autumn. The entire affair closes shop after lunch like a British pub, but by morning the flowers have regained consciousness. Seeds can be ordered through http://Chileflora.com which also sells an staggering number of other fascinating South American native species.

Nolana reichii

Nolana elegans

Nolana linearifolia

The waterlilies in our pools continue to throttle my occipital lobe in marvelous ways, believing I must indeed share both the vision and talents of Claude Monet. I don’t. But the reflective qualities of the water in which they grow in addition to the flowers and foliage rising from an aquatic mirage continues to leave me saddened that I do not. There is nothing quite like a plant that thrives in standing water that more grants a gardener the permission to smirk at the severest of droughts.

Nymphaea ‘Pink Beauty’ and ‘Virginalis’

Yes, the northern bits of this garden called Windcliff are heavy in Hydrangea, though many of the earlier species have diminished earlier than normal with the unabating heat. Just gaining steam, however, is one of the best of the ‘asperas’ that I grow. H. kawakamii, collected by seed in Taiwan with the Wynn-Jones in 1999. It possesses remarkable substance in foliage and flower. For those wishing to explore the genus in greater depth, please attend the Hydrangea Festival at Heronswood this coming weekend, August 9th, in Kingston, WA. The garden is top-loaded with good Hydrangeas as well as experts on the genus. https://www.heronswoodgarden.org/events

Hydrangea kawakamii DJHT 99059

We hope to see and welcome you to Windcliff in the near future. Stay cool, and, as always, pray for rain.

DJH 8/3/25

Windcliff Plants( updated inventory here) is open to visitors Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday (appointments can easily be made by emailing windcliff2@centurytel.net ) If you are visiting for a specific plant, please ask regarding its current availability prior to your visit. Our fare can also be purchased at Heronswood, Ravenna Gardens of University Village in Seattle, and Bay Hay and Feed on Bainbridge Island.

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