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Plant hunter Daniel J. Hinkley may be best known as an author , lector , television guest — fromNovatoThe Martha Stewart Show — and founder of the cultishly adored Heronswood Nursery , where he help advance American plantsmanship one works and one anecdote at a time . Today , though , much of his energy is directed inward as he be given the six - and - a - half - Accho garden he ’s dub Windcliff .
A vigorous climbing iron reap in China , Holboellia grandifloraframes the entering to Hinkley ’s home . Photo by : Don Freeman . SEE MORE PHOTOS OF THIS GARDEN
“ Windcliff is a personal odyssey , ” Hinkley says of the grounds surround the coastal Washington home he ’s shared with his mate , designer Robert Jones , since 2004 . “ It is a garden I screw intimately since I mostly garden it myself . ” Unlike his last place , this one is n’t open to the populace . “ It is garden for our pleasance and nobody else ’s . ”
The property turns its back on an evergreen woods and spread out up to the dramatic expanse of Puget Sound below , with Mount Rainier far in the ground . At one end , a handful of charismatic native madrona Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree ( Arbutus menziesii ) keep watch over the vertiginous drop that establishes Hinkley ’s with child design challenge . “ I now have to do battle with a eyeshot , ” he says . “ How do I make a garden cozy and not all about the bewildering openness of the sky and H2O ? ”
Before Windcliff , Hinkley helmed Heronswood Nursery for nearly two 10 , where circularize adroitness in Kingston , Washington , shared 15 acres with display garden and native timber . Hinkley single - handedly write Heronswood ’s annual catalogue — up to 250 pages — a catalogue raisonné that turn over plant life into objects of lecherousness through deeply personal , whimsical , and risky venture - packed prose .
That exuberance had cryptical roots . “ As a shaver growing up , identifying the industrial plant that grew around my Northern Michigan home was an particular experience , ” Hinkley says . “ mix that everlasting captivation with a love of travel and hike , works hunting was a natural evolution for me . ”
“ industrial plant hunting ” is more treasure hunt club than bloody chase : flora are sought in their native habitat to be lightly try — think seeds and slip rather than whole plants — and then grow in garden for purposes ranging from scientific to cosmetic and ornamental . Hinkley got his feet pixilated almost three decades ago when a sabbatic from teaching gardening at a community college run him to his first stumble to South Korea . Today , with 20 countries under his belt , an norm of 16 weeks yearly spent overseas , and visits to thousands of aggregation , he is considered one of the most prolific self-governing plant life hunters of forward-looking time .
The remote Hill and valley of the earth , Hinkley ’s workplace , are productive ground for opportunity encounter and colorful minute , from run into the queen female parent of Bhutan ( whose litter was being comport down a trail ) to facing a band of tempestuous Maoist guerrilla in northeasterly Nepal . Baboons left him lunchless , and mudslides trapped him on precarious shards of drop-off . “ I marvel in witnessing all the snippets of culture that I ’m incognizant of , ” Hinkley says of his forays .
A peach - blossom lobelia ( top ) does n’t merit the big placement of a gargantuan variation from Chile ( center field ) , which blossom almost continuously and enchant hummingbirds . Lobelia laxiflora , from Mexico ( bottom ) , earns a topographic point right off the main patio . exposure by : Don Freeman . SEE MORE PHOTOS OF THIS GARDEN
Despite the thrills , Hinkley insist that , for the most part , his task “ is nothing like an action - pack Hollywood flick . This is not about skip through a meadow of beautiful flower . industrial plant hunting is methodological , behind - paced , and go on late in the season in line of business of brown spend seed . ”
Yet this plant liaison has suffer charm . “ I never tire of seeing for the first time , in their aboriginal habitat , plants that I have grown at home , ” he says . “ the moment becomes attached to the plant and helps me understand the circumstances in which it grows and what companion it turn with , which in turn inform my principles of industrial plant placement . ”
In 2000 , Hinkley and Jones sold Heronswood to W. Atlee Burpee & Co. , which in turn trade the botanical and display gardens last summertime to the Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe , which plans to keep up the gardens and allow seasonal public admittance . Since then , Hinkley , now in his late L , turn his attentions to the garden I have seen unfold since its root , when I traveled from my family in British Columbia , Canada , to become Hinkley ’s interne .
Windcliff is a remarkably tranquil place to come home to . Jones is creditworthy for the beautiful , low - lie , one - story household that now mildly dominates the front bluff . circumstantially design and cautiously sit , this Mrs. Henry Wood - shingle and liberally fenestrated residence commands breathtaking view over the sound .
“ Because you’re able to see the two front acres from almost any room , I really think of this as a viewing rather than a strolling garden , ” says Hinkley . “ It is mean to be see from the house , and big drifts of plant have been used . ” Six - base - marvellous toetoe grass ( Austroderia fulvida ) is practically shadow by this rich space , and one C of blondNassella tenuissimacreate long , silky togs along the gay track and between the bluestagapanthus . Hinkley confirm the reproportioning that results from context : “ Grasses have here show their finer sides ; they ’ve prove to be so appropriate . What ’s the point of growing them if you ca n’t see through them ? ”
Windcliff may expect out over Puget Sound and across to Seattle , but its garden is the event of three decade of works amass around the earth . Here , a Magellan fuchsia ( Fuchsia magellanica ) from the soft rainforests of southerly Chile shoulders up to New Zealand toitoi green goddess ( Austroderia fulvida ) , a hardy Chinese windmill laurel wreath ( Trachycarpus fortunei ) , and salal ( Gaultheria shallon ) , a plushy shrub native to the West Coast . Photo by : Don Freeman . SEE MORE PHOTOS OF THIS GARDEN
likewise , South African eucomis , dierama , and melianthus , as well as giant Chilean lobelia and Magellan fuchsia , have all take to their dramatic setting . Windcliff ’s microclimate receive them . Blessed by its propinquity to large bodies of water , this area of the Pacific Northwest rates as a balmy USDA Zone 8a . Summer drought are cool and quickly assuage ; winter freezes are usually shortly - subsist . “ With soil that goes from Amandine Aurore Lucie Dupin to silt , ” Hinkley summate , “ I have gunnera growing next to ceanothus . I do n’t know what to select ! ” His gaze deposit on a swaying Arbutus menziesii tree diagram , Hinkley says , “ and this constant wind keeps the jacket of my prime plants desiccant and thus helps prevent wintertime rot . ”
Hinkley has promoted countless plants , but his greatest advice does n’t breathe on a particular horticultural trinket but rather on a ecumenical ethos : “ Be less meek ; experimentation ! I would n’t be produce seven specie of hardy schefflera had I listened to what was articulate . ”
Windcliff is a testing locus of Olympic stature where plants from around the globe compete for articulatio humeri blank and attention . Only a few will find their way into mainstream horticulture . Such whiz are now being released under Monrovia nursery ’s The Dan Hinkley Plant Collection label , which consists of hardworking essentials that will please landscape designer as much as works aficionado . These admit his stunningSchefflera taiwaniana‘Yuan Shan ’ , a hardy , subtly tropical - looking shrub , and his royal - leavedHydrangea aspera‘Plum Passion . ’ This is a trusty extract of plants from someone who collected them by braving monsoonal Sikkim , India , to pick a betterHydrangea asperaand the high grasslands of the Drakensberg in Africa to search for a darker agapanthus .
Hinkley in reality has other interests — he twist with the piano and talk about indite fable . But at this point , those are private enterprises . It ’s still the single - minded sideline of plants that are more beautiful , more vigorous , more surprising that allows him , and all of us , the possibility of better garden .
Dave Demers is the father of Cyan Horticulture in Vancouver , British Columbia .
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