The botanically rich yet rugged slopes of Five Fingers in northern Vietnam, visited once again in the autumn of 2023 with Ireland’s fern guru and good friend, Billy Alexander.
After betraying my brain to Facebook and my heart to the Heartlands of America for far too long, going forward I am returning to my personal keyboard and ownership of ethics. I have been as happy as a dog with two tails for many years while sharing photos of plants that I have respectfully collected in the wilds, trialed, brought to flower and sometimes propagated to ultimately share from our garden to yours. The platform — or better said scheme — was easy to devour. However the subsequent gluttony of commerce and political power is impossible to swallow. I will endeavor to share with you the joie de vivre that our natural world has brought us in our own unedited design of truth, self-awareness, personal experience and an obligation to respect those deserving it. On our own terms.
Robert and I have worked prodigiously during our entire lives; long nights, sweaty days and blistered hands. We have earnestly and without reluctance paid taxes to build a better system of education for other’s children, roads, health, a safety net for the less fortunate and a welcoming community to all manner of folk. We are not going to let stand the callous, patentable ineptitude of one who operates by the moral compass of blue-green algae, nor ignore an unelected, randy South African breeder, nor bow to a short majority of spineless sycophants as they bear down on us. We are here. And it is we who are actually doing the work and intrinsically contributing to society. Should you wish to continue to receive our monthly newsletters, please understand that the above stated thoughts are our foundational standards in doing business and govern our communication with our valued customers.
In this listing, you will find many new plants we have garnered recently from high places around the globe; seed collecting trips to Vietnam (2019, 2022, 2023), China (2014, 2015, 2016, 2017) and NE India (2016, 2018) and Slovenia (2017), joining ranks with Dan’s collections over nearly 40 years. Our interest in New Zealand, South Africa, Chile and Tasmania continues; that is until their interest in having us visit us wanes. Amongst them all are our pet genera (or other’s pets) who we adore as much as any child; Agapanthus, hardy Begonia species, Kniphofia, Hydrangea, Podophyllum, Polygonatum, Maianthemum and Disporum.
As always, we remain indebted to our loyal helpers. If we cannot with any sense of security share all of their names, we will share none of them. They all know how much they are valued here as well as good and decent members of our society. I continue to remain in awe of my comrades in this business, who have built their collections, and offered them to all of us, with honesty, forthrightness and grace.
We encourage the brave of heart to navigate the country roads of Kitsap County and visit our nursery and garden during this coming season, using our updated inventory at www.danieljhinkley.com as a guide to what we may have in stock; please know that, yes, we still experience crop failures and unforeseen popularity, so if you are making the trip for a specific plant, make sure you contact us in advance to confirm it is available. Make a day of it by visiting our former garden, Heronswood- that is exploding with excitement- and the Bloedel Reserve on Bainbridge Island. (not far from Bay Hay and Feed!) We do apologize for not wishing to again rejoin the fray of mail order. An ever-changing selection of Windcliff Plants can be found for sale exclusively on the tables at Heronswood, Ravenna Gardens of University Village in Seattle, and Bay Hay and Feed on Bainbridge Island.
horticulturally and respectfully yours,
Daniel J Hinkley and Robert L Jones
I’m so happy to once again receive a message from you, and hopefully we can all get through this mess!
Let’s stick together, be strong, and make this an unfortunate, curable cancer in our history.
Voices of sanity! Yes yes yes!
Voices of sanity. Welcome !
Thankfully I’ve never had anything to do with Facebook. Your words were very encouraging and I’m so glad to know we feel the same about the current world situation. My friends and I had the pleasure of vising Windcliff a few years ago, loved it, and of course came home with a car load of plants.
So wonderful to read of your plans to unclutter your messages. I will look forward to your newsletters and plan a visit to heronswood or one of your delightful lectures soon.
Please keep me on your list. I so loved visiting Heronswood Nursery and hope to make it to Indianola someday.
Thanks for protecting your friends.
Dear Dan and Robert,
This will be short, otherwise I’ll gush uncontrollably in profound relief and gratitude. The roiling, churning in my gut has calmed after reading your email and knowing that you are here standing firm, speaking truth with ever smart wit. Thank you, thank you, love you, Sue
Bless you, you write what is in many of our hearts.
I am so pleased to see your message this morning. It’s hard not to be discouraged in these times!
As a 77-year old recent widow in Maple Valley, it’s a challenge to get over to your neighborhood, as well as all the other wonderful gardens in the vicinity. I drive an electric vehicle (definitely not one of his), and am still a little leery of charging beyond it’s range without more experience with charging on the road , but I will take advantage of any opportunity to get over there, or up to Ravenna, or wherever your plants are offered.
Thanks for all you do.
More of this please! So well worded Dan. Not only do I admire your plantsman efforts but that you remain true to self in these ridiculous times. Your work is much appreciated!!
Bravo! For putting in words so well what I feel (if I said what I really feel about the mango Mussolini and his side-kick Muskox, I’d be arrested).
You have always, and will continue to, have my gratitude for the work you do bringing beauty into our lives and sharing wonderful, and usually very funny, stories with us.
Love you guys!
I’m not much for leaving messages, but I thought I was seeing things when your name popped up in my email. Oh, this is wonderful! I knew I kept all my Heronswood catalogs for a reason.
To Pat in Maple Valley: I’m nowhere near you but we can find a way to get you to the Mothership Nursery. My car runs on gas.
Trust a plantsman to tell the truth that uplifts us all, with honesty, bravery and intelligence. Your words bring tears to my eyes (emotions at age 82 are just below the surface) and overwhelming gratefulness once again for all the earl years of magnificent plants ordered from Heronswood and still thriving in my Northern CA garden. It’s broken backs and sometimes hearts (as Vita Sackville-West said) that keep us true. Don’t stop and thank you for reminding us what is so today and always. To be part of this beautiful community is a gift in itself.
Thank you. Your email’s message made my day! You both can stand tall, and heads above many others in this over-the-top capitalistic country focused on exorbitant greed.
Thank you Dan and Robert, I couldn’t have said it better!
To you both Dan and Robert:
Yahooooey!!! I forwarded your message to five friends immediately. First article I’ve read since the election that has motivated me. I haven’t been able to read or watch anything as I’ve been so dispirited. Thank you! ( 31° last night so my Hawks head fuchsia is undercover on my patio, my favorite plant)
Dan and Robert,
Your note gave me hope in thesevery dark days. Thank you for speaking up. There are many of us who are appalled by the current team in D.C. We are banding together to uphold the values of our democracy, which include diversity, equity, and inclusion.
I wish our human system of governance were as sophisticated as the mychorrizal networks of our forests!
Melissa
Your usual wonderful sense of humor made this well timed message a work of verbal art. Retreating to my garden is going to be the only way to get thru this mess. Thank you.
Dear Dan and Robert,
Thank you for this post. It was so nice to receive your message in my inbox.
I look out my window and see plants I purchased from you going strong and resisting the PNW dark winter: 1) the black hellebore has popped up and is ready to bloom; 2) the Bengal fire rose still has a few pink petals. They inspire me to resist in other ways….
I look forward to visiting your gardens (including Heronswood) again.
Thank you Dan and Robert for this refreshing message. We are kindred spirts.
Tough times. Gardening helps, but not sure if it’s enough.
Judy and Fred Isaac
I fully agree with your sentiments, well said.
I look forward to picking up this years plants at Windcliff.
Thank you, Dan and Robert,
Your gift of words, Dan, are so right on during this time of craziness. Keep up good work!
Thank you Dan and Robert for taking a stand when so many of us are just stuck in a sea of despair and hopelessness. Keep the posts coming……..I for one will look forward to them as much as I did to your Heronswood catalogs. Matter of fact, I think I’ll get them out and start reading your old essays before bed, instead of the news I can’t seem to get away from.
Love you both, Mollie
Thank you Dan and Robert for making the move to part ways with FB and to forge this upstanding way to connect with all of us. Our respect and gratitude is enormous as I hope you both can feel across the browsers. I dare to feel a bit of hope too.
Bring on the plant messages and plant gatherings. Bring on the healing.
I do wish my Polyspora longiflora looked as beautiful as the one in the photo, appreciate seeing one happy in the wild. I am grateful that mine does still live and flowers on occasion.
SO look forward to future tales of the plant kingdom.
Frankye
Well said, except for the gratuitous insult to the intelligence of blue-green algae.
i bow deeply to your love of so many green, growing ones, and, your Truth so eloquently spoken, about the Times we are currently living through in this country…and in this world.
we’ve never met, although i have lived in indianola for over twenty-five years, and vividly remember when Martha Stewart came through town, as your guest. her driver took a strange short cut on Madrona St where I used to live, and where my across-the-street-neighbor’s dog, Queenie, was taking her daily afternoon nap, RIGHT.IN.THE.MIDDLE.OF.THE.STREET (where she always napped). there was quite a bit of honking, but Queenie was old and deaf, so she just kept on sleeping. eventually they were able to wake Queenie up, and off they drove…it was a fabulous scene to witness from my front porch.
: >
i am “a plant born into a human body”, which is the way I described myself in a dream one morning just as I was waking up in my cabin. i awoke, laughing out loud, to this excellent description of my relationship with the green, growing ones.
again, i bow deeply to your Truth so eloquently spoken, about the Times we are currently living through in this country…and in this world.
thank you, Thank You, THANK YOU,