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works hunter Daniel J. Hinkley may be good know as an author , reader , tv guest — fromNovatoThe Martha Stewart Show — and laminitis of the cultishly adored Heronswood Nursery , where he assist advance American plantsmanship one plant and one anecdote at a time . Today , though , much of his vigor is directed inwards as he tend the six - and - a - half - Akko garden he ’s dubbed Windcliff .
A vigorous crampoon harvested in China , Holboellia grandifloraframes the entry to Hinkley ’s home . Photo by : Don Freeman . SEE MORE PHOTOS OF THIS GARDEN
“ Windcliff is a personal odyssey , ” Hinkley says of the grounds surrounding the coastal Washington plate he ’s partake in with his partner , designer Robert Jones , since 2004 . “ It is a garden I love intimately since I mostly garden it myself . ” Unlike his last space , this one is n’t open to the public . “ It is garden for our pleasure and nobody else ’s . ”
The property twist its back on an evergreen woods and opens up to the dramatic expanse of Puget Sound below , with Mount Rainier far in the background . At one remnant , a handful of magnetic aboriginal madrona trees ( Arbutus menziesii ) keep sentinel over the vertiginous drop-off that establishes Hinkley ’s greatest intention challenge . “ I now have to do battle with a view , ” he says . “ How do I make a garden intimate and not all about the bewildering openness of the sky and water ? ”
Before Windcliff , Hinkley helmed Heronswood Nursery for nearly two decades , where broadcast installation in Kingston , Washington , shared 15 acres with video display gardens and aboriginal forest . Hinkley single - handedly wrote Heronswood ’s yearly catalog — up to 250 Page — a catalog raisonné that plow plant life into aim of lust through profoundly personal , whimsical , and risky venture - bundle prose .
That ebullience had cryptical roots . “ As a kid growing up , identify the plants that grew around my Northern Michigan home was an exceeding experience , ” Hinkley order . “ compound that everlasting fascination with a love of travel and hiking , plant hunting was a rude evolution for me . ”
“ Plant hunting ” is more hoarded wealth hunt than blinking pursuit : plant are sought in their native habitat to be gently sampled — opine semen and cuttings rather than whole plants — and then raise in gardens for purposes ranging from scientific to cosmetic and cosmetic . Hinkley got his feet wet almost three decades ago when a sabbatic from teach gardening at a community college led him to his first misstep to South Korea . Today , with 20 countries under his belt , an average of 16 weeks yearly spent oversea , and visits to thousands of assembling , he is consider one of the most prolific independent plant huntsman of innovative times .
The remote hills and vale of the ground , Hinkley ’s workplace , are rich ground for hazard encounters and colorful moments , from lean into the queen female parent of Bhutan ( whose litter was being carried down a track ) to facing a isthmus of angry Maoist insurgents in northeast Nepal . Baboons lead him lunchless , and mudslides trammel him on precarious sherd of cliff . “ I wonder in witnessing all the snip of culture that I ’m unaware of , ” Hinkley say of his forays .
A peach - flowered lobelia ( top ) does n’t merit the prominent placement of a giant variation from Chile ( nitty-gritty ) , which blooms almost incessantly and delights hummingbirds . Lobelia laxiflora , from Mexico ( bottom ) , earns a spot right off the main terrace . Photo by : Don Freeman . SEE MORE photograph OF THIS GARDEN
Despite the thrills , Hinkley importune that , for the most part , his Book of Job “ is nothing like an action - pile Hollywood movie . This is not about vamoose through a meadow of beautiful peak . Plant hunt is methodological , slow - step , and happens belatedly in the time of year in fields of browned drop come . ”
Yet this flora affair has enduring charms . “ I never tire of seeing for the first time , in their aboriginal habitat , plant that I have grow at home , ” he says . “ the moment becomes sequester to the flora and helps me sympathize the lot in which it grows and what companions it grows with , which in turn of events informs my principles of plant location . ”
In 2000 , Hinkley and Jones sold Heronswood to W. Atlee Burpee & Co. , which in act sold the botanical and display garden last summer to the Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe , which plan to maintain the gardens and allow seasonal public access . Since then , Hinkley , now in his late 50s , turned his care to the garden I have seen unfold since its beginning , when I traveled from my home in British Columbia , Canada , to become Hinkley ’s interne .
Windcliff is a remarkably tranquil topographic point to come home to . Jones is creditworthy for the beautiful , low - consist , one - story house that now gently overshadow the front bluff . Minutely project and carefully model , this wood - shingled and generously fenestrated residence commands breathtaking sentiment over the auditory sensation .
“ Because you could 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 intend to be seen from the business firm , and large impetus of plants have been used . ” Six - human foot - grandiloquent toetoe locoweed ( Austroderia fulvida ) is practically dwarfed by this ample blank space , and hundreds of blondNassella tenuissimacreate long , silken threads along the sunnier path and between the bluestagapanthus . Hinkley sustain the reproportioning that results from context : “ Grasses have here show their finer sides ; they ’ve proven to be so appropriate . What ’s the point of growing them if you ca n’t see through them ? ”
Windcliff may count out over Puget Sound and across to Seattle , but its garden is the result of three decades of industrial plant collect around the world . Here , a Magellan fuchsia ( Fuchsia magellanica ) from the mild rainforests of southern Chile shoulders up to New Zealand toetoe grass ( Austroderia fulvida ) , a hardy Chinese windmill thenar ( Trachycarpus fortunei ) , and salal ( Gaultheria salal ) , a lucullan shrub aboriginal to the West Coast . Photo by : Don Freeman . SEE MORE picture OF THIS GARDEN
Similarly , South African eucomis , dierama , and melianthus , as well as jumbo Chilean lobelia and Magellan fuchsia , have all taken to their spectacular scope . Windcliff ’s microclimate welcome them . Blessed by its propinquity to declamatory bodies of water supply , this area of the Pacific Northwest rates as a mild USDA Zone 8a . summertime drouth are cool and quickly alleviated ; winter halt are ordinarily short - lived . “ With soil that goes from backbone to silt , ” Hinkley adds , “ I have gunnera grow next to ceanothus . I do n’t know what to choose ! ” His regard fixed on a swaying Arbutus menziesii Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree , Hinkley says , “ and this constant flatus keeps the crown of my choicest plants drier and thus aid prevent winter rot . ”
Hinkley has promoted uncounted plants , but his big advice does n’t rest on a particular horticultural novelty but rather on a general ethos : “ Be less tamed ; experiment ! I would n’t be growing seven species of hardy genus Schefflera had I listen to what was said . ”
Windcliff is a examination locale of Olympic height where plant from around the globe compete for shoulder space and attention . Only a few will receive their path into mainstream horticulture . Such champions are now being released under Monrovia nursery ’s The Dan Hinkley Plant Collection label , which consists of hardworking essentials that will please landscape designers as much as plant aficionados . These include his stunningSchefflera taiwaniana‘Yuan Shan ’ , a hardy , subtly tropic - look shrub , and his purple - leavedHydrangea aspera‘Plum Passion . ’ This is a trustworthy selection 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 wrestle with the piano and negotiation about write fable . But at this point , those are secret enterprises . It ’s still the single - tending hobby of plant that are more beautiful , more vigorous , more surprising that allows him , and all of us , the possibility of better gardens .
Dave Demers is the founder of Cyan Horticulture in Vancouver , British Columbia .
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