Seeds of Success: From Kingston to Nepal, a plant explorer's journey to fame

Dan Hinkley is a tough man to track down. If you call him up at Heronswood, his world-famous nursery in Kingston, you'll be lucky to get through. These days, Hinkley has handlers. Connie Lammers, of the confiding voice and raucous chuckle, has a full-time job scheduling him and fending off the droves pressing for his time and knowledge. She'll explain he is on his way to Juneau to search for a plant he's mad about, then flying off to speak in Philadelphia, or England. Or perhaps he's busy preparing for a plant-hunting expedition to Korea, Japan or Nepal.

The surest bet is e-mail, and you'll get back a missive sent in the middle of the night from an airport in Dublin or perhaps Chicago. But don't expect the e-mail to be fully coherent, for even though Hinkley writes books, magazine articles and every word of the nursery's acclaimed catalog, he is no doubt beat because he's just finished trekking, lecturing or painstakingly washing seed to mail back home. And he may well be confused about what time zone he's in, since he has already tramped back and forth to Europe and Asia several times this year, and criss-crosses the country most months.

Hinkley doesn't just grow and sell plants; he tracks them down, collects them from the far corners of the globe, and studies them with the intensity of the student and professor he once was and the plant nerd he remains.

When Lewis and Clark, in the first years of the 19th century, triumphantly carried Lewisia columbiana and Clarkia amoena back to Thomas Jefferson from their Northwest expedition, and when David Douglas sighted salal at the mouth of the Columbia River in 1825, the noble tradition of Northwest botanizing was born. These hardworking explorers were charged with finding new seas and lands, but also with discovering plants, and their efforts brought the virtues of Northwest native flora to world attention.

Now Hinkley goes forth from his woodland garden to explore places with rainfall patterns and elevations similar to our own, whether it's a beach in Chile or a mountainside in China. He searches for plants that, because of their exotic looks, hardiness or disease resistance, will enrich or refine the gene pool of the nearly 10,000 species, varieties or clones he already grows at Heronswood.

Hinkley has combined his sense of wonder about plants growing in their native habitats with his horticultural knowledge to create a five-acre extravaganza of a garden that is both laboratory and showcase for the plants he collects. When in 1985 Hinkley and partner Robert Jones bought property near Kingston, on the Kitsap Peninsula a short ferry ride north of Seattle, they intended to start a little nursery to help finance the garden Hinkley was hankering for. At the time, Jones was working as a Seattle architect and Hinkley was teaching horticulture at Edmonds Community College.

"Robert is a self-admitted pathetic plantsman," says Hinkley. "He thinks spatially, I think botanically." Jones designed the structures and spaces; Hinkley planted them. Jones handled the business.

The result is the mecca known as Heronswood Nursery. Offices for the staff, hoop houses holding rows and rows of plants with unpronounceable names, fabulous gardens, and Jones and Hinkley's much-remodeled rambler all co-exist on the acreage, showing clearly that Heronswood has become something far more than Hinkley ever intended.

As you walk through the gardens — and thousands of people do each year — you see dozens and dozens of plants that look kind of like something else you've seen before, but not quite. These are new, sought-after colors and cultivars, all artfully combined and beautifully grown in an explosion of texture, fragrance and blossom that is sensuous, magical and nearly overwhelming on a warm day when the roses are in bloom.

As Hinkley tells it, despite the vast number of plants he has amassed, he is doomed to wander the world in search of more. When he finds a plant, his first reaction is to wonder about its relatives. What are their natural habitats? Might this green-leafed plant have a cousin with variegated leaves? He itches to collect seed from each and every kinsman; he feels compelled to carry home the seed, to grow it, test it, perhaps market it.

How did a Michigan farm boy, starry-eyed about the mild climate of the Northwest, become the world's foremost plant explorer? How did a student who lived in the Arboretum's stone cottage while earning his master's degree at the University of Washington become one of the richest nurserymen on Earth in a little over a decade? How did one man, working in an obscure corner of the country, help make the Northwest the envy of the gardening world?

You won't get much of an answer from Hinkley himself.

HINKLEY EXPLAINS he ended up in the Northwest because he was simply part of the great westerly migration of Lutherans. As for how he became the ultimate plant expert, he says modestly that he has a facility for pronouncing and remembering their names. Not that such an ability should be underestimated in the gardening world, where Latin trinomials trip up many a gardener.

And when you're hanging on the side of a crevasse peering at a plant you've never seen before, it is imperative to be intimately acquainted with the world's known flora. When each year you write a 250-page catalog packed with descriptions of thousands of different plants — a catalog that has become a reference volume for tens of thousands of gardeners — a proficiency for plant names is vital. What Hinkley doesn't care to admit is how instrumental he has been in bringing the Northwest to the gardening world's attention. So much so that Garden Design magazine is set to name Seattle one of America's three most exciting gardening cities. The Garden Conservancy, the American Horticultural Society and the Garden Writers of America all held national conferences in Seattle last summer.

Rosie Atkins, longtime editor of the award-winning magazine Gardens Illustrated, describes Hinkley as "the thinking gardener's idol." Famed British plant explorer Roy Lancaster says of Hinkley, "He is blessed with a keen eye for a good garden plant that is growing in the wild. But having a keen eye isn't enough — you also have to get the seed back, propagate it and, most difficult of all, introduce it to the gardening public. Many plant explorers have one of those four skills; Dan has all of them in abundance."

Hinkley's rise to this kind of horticultural superstardom is unparalleled. The nursery has grown to employ 35 people, raking in $1.7 million in 2000. When Hinkley and Jones sold Heronswood to Philadelphia-based W. Atlee Burpee that year, the price was undisclosed, but it made them both millionaires. Despite the fact that both Hinkley and Jones continue running the nursery on contract for the foreseeable future, rumors about the sale reverberated throughout the horticultural community, calmed only recently when people came to trust that Heronswood remains virtually unchanged. "Robert and I underestimated the affection and sense of local ownership of Heronswood," Hinkley muses. "It was a compliment but also a shock."

By the late 1990s the enterprise had burgeoned into something Hinkley no longer liked. "Robert and I felt suffocated — it had lost its sparkle and fun," he says. "The garden became a showcase, a monkey on our backs." Burpee bought a first-class nursery with a mailing list that reads like the horticultural Who's Who of the Western world and a catalog that offers the most comprehensive array of unusual trees, shrubs, vines and perennials in America.

When you see Hinkley leading a tour at Heronswood, pointing out the stupendously tall lily relative Cardiocrinum gigantium in full, fragrant bloom, or bending to push aside a leaf to reveal the tiny flowers on a precious Japanese hepatica, it is clear he treasures each inch of the place. Nevertheless, Jones and Hinkley are looking forward to moving to a private garden and new house Jones has designed at Windcliff, their new property high on a bluff a few miles away. Here they'll have plenty of room for the parade of international horticulturists who stay with them, for the two are endlessly hospitable. The new house will have guest quarters and a kitchen large enough to accommodate Hinkley's other love, cooking. Jones and Hinkley will drive to work every day like other people, rather than step outside their front door into the fracas.

And of course, Hinkley is hard at work planning and planting a garden at Windcliff, where he has five mostly empty acres for a collection of his favorite trees. He describes the property's southern exposure as "hot and bakey," ideal for growing treasures from Tasmania, New Zealand and South Africa. So far, he is planting swathes of groundcovers, shrubs and ornamental grasses in hopes of making a garden he can care for himself. Most of all, Windcliff will never become a public garden. "I'm getting interested again, and appreciating the process of planting and being patient," says Hinkley. "I'm excited about making a beautiful space for me and for my friends."

LATELY, HINKLEY seems to have crossed from the plant world into popular consciousness, including a gush from his friend Martha Stewart in her magazine: "He is strong, he is fun to be with and — yes — I love him." His garden is discussed in a recent issue of House and Garden, and he was profiled in The New York Times magazine a couple of years ago. In that article, Hinkley was described as "bearded and balding," and shown looking a bit burly in a T-shirt and suspenders. Perhaps it was the description that launched Hinkley's new, sleeker look. His head and face are neatly shaved; he's lost weight, and while his garb in the garden remains boots, shorts and a belt wide enough to hold a walkie-talkie, his public outfits of flannel shirts and jeans have been replaced by sport coats, turtlenecks and slacks.

Recently, while staying with Stewart in Connecticut, he attended a party where he and Tommy Hilfiger were the only ones not wearing a tie. How does Hinkley reconcile the polarities of such a life? "I'm cognizant of the fact it's been a total ride," he says. "I've had extraordinary opportunities."

When he sleeps in a tent in the mountains of Nepal for a month, he spends the first 10 days worrying about e-mails and lattes, but then he gets into life as day-to-day, hour-by-hour progress. "I'm kind of an observer, and that grounds me," says Hinkley, who fears the life he has been living might be perceived as that of a dilettante.

What he really wants to do is study plants in greater detail. He can see going back to teaching full time, for at heart Hinkley remains an educator, and derives the most pleasure from what he sees on expeditions rather than what he gathers. He treads lightly, leaving the plants where they stand, usually collecting only seed, and not too much of that. Back home, he tries to grow these plants in ideal conditions, encouraging, observing, then perhaps writing about and selling the plant.

It isn't always easy being in the limelight, but Hinkley manages to maintain the mild manner and self-deprecating humor that endear him to the eager audiences who listen to his hundreds of lectures each year. This past February, Heronswood's display garden at the Flower and Garden Show earned nary a ribbon. Rather than the expected cultivated garden, Hinkley and Jones created a rough hillside in China, a welter of native plants tangled around ruins and pathways, realistic down to the piles of dung along the trail (fashioned by Jones out of brownie dough). Hinkley, whose earlier gardens won prizes and adulation, laughs and shakes his head over the many less-than-complimentary comments he heard while working the show, including the shrill, "Who is responsible for this mess?" The remark has become a standard line around Heronswood whenever anything is out of place, in memory of the display garden the public wasn't quite ready for.

Not so funny is the controversy over the possibility all this exploring and propagating will bring in invasive plants, something that gives Hinkley nightmares. It's an issue that has polarized the gardening community because the chance of introducing the next kudzu will always conflict with the desire to find new plants. "I take heat on the issue," says Hinkley, "but mostly because my name seems to have become linked with contemporary plant introduction and because contemporary plant introduction has become the poster villain in the demise of biodiversity." Those on the opposite side of the issue aren't happy with Hinkley, either. Because he has taken a stand against invasives in his catalog, and hired an expert to analyze plants in advance for even the possibility of invasiveness, Hinkley thinks the nursery industry, whose lifeblood is new plants, feels he has given in to the biodiversity zealots. "I do know that gardeners do good things, intrinsically, to our environment, and damn anyone who says otherwise," he declares.

BUT ENOUGH about biodiversity. Will Hinkley dish about his friend Martha? He's afraid it sounds corny if he says he enjoys spending time with her, but what started as a business relationship (he writes for her magazine and appears on her television show) has turned into a friendship. There is the story of how Jones and Hinkley were away hiking in the San Juan Islands one day when they got a cellphone call from Connie saying the diva herself was hovering over Heronswood in a helicopter, asking permission to land on the lawn. Connie, always the lion at the gate, famously asked Martha if she had an appointment.

Since then, Jones and Hinkley have spent weekends at Stewart's Maine estate, where hikes starts at 6 a.m. Afternoons include private yoga lessons, antiquing or perhaps a reading by crime writer Dominick Dunne, who was a guest during Hinkley's last visit. Hinkley, who turns 50 next year, runs on caffeine, and accomplishes more in a week than most of us dream of in a year, "remains in awe of her energy."

Such a life of hobnobbing with celebrities and hiking in the hills of Nepal may sound glamorous. Being the first to recognize and retrieve a previously unseen plant must bring satisfaction. But Hinkley spends much of his time in long hours of travel with layovers in distant airports. He lives in primitive conditions for weeks at a time, hikes at high elevations and eats weird food. There is nothing easy about collecting plants or making gardens; like any other art or mad pursuit, both involve waste and false starts.

A year ago August, Jones and Hinkley flew to Juneau for a talk Hinkley was to give (his brother is the city horticulturist in Juneau). On a sightseeing trip to Mendenhall Glacier, they stopped at a bridge over a creek where black bears hunt salmon. While Hinkley watched a bear climbing out of the water, he caught sight of a perfectly variegated Streptopus amplexifolius (a perennial with oddly twisted stalks and bright red fruit). Hinkley had never heard of a variegated clone of this species anywhere, and this wasn't just any speckled foliage but a plant with clean, white margins outlining every leaf. Despite his excitement, he knew there were too many bears and people around to try to get to the plant, so at dusk the next evening, he and Jones returned to the bridge to capture a piece of it. Like an air-traffic controller, Jones stood on the bridge and directed Hinkley down toward the creek: "You have three bears approaching at 3 o'clock and one at 9 . . . oh, just go for it!"

So Hinkley ran across the glacier-fed creek and found the plant growing between two hefty alder roots. He dug frantically, imagining the hot breath of bears on his neck. Jones yelled out a warning, so Hinkley gave up on finding the plant's rhizome, accidentally broke off a stem, grabbed it and ran wildly back across the creek, scrambling up the bank to safety. Back at his hotel, he took photos to prove his find, prepared cuttings and put them in a plastic bag in the refrigerator. Next morning he found the cuttings had frozen solid, turning to mush by the time they thawed. Heartbreak.

Unable to forget the plant, he flew back to Juneau this past summer, heading straight to the creek from the airport. He was greeted by more bears and salmon, but only a gaping hole where the plant had grown. Had a bear grubbed it out, or another wily plantsman beat him to it? Such is the life of a plant collector.

Hinkley hopes someone who has the plant will read this — all he wants is a tiny division for his own garden. If you have any information on the whereabouts of that perfectly margined Streptopus amplexifolius, please send it Hinkley's way. Of course, you won't reach him by phone, for earlier this month Hinkley flew to South Africa; from there he heads for Katmandu, then on to trek along the northeast Tibetan border in search of a perennial blue impatiens.

So if you do have what Hinkley's looking for, just leave the information with Connie.

He'll be back

Interested in learning more about Daniel J. Hinkley's travels and discoveries? In upcoming issues of Pacific Northwest magazine, Hinkley will take us along to some of the most interesting plant places on the planet.

Valerie Easton is manager at the Miller Horticultural Library. Her book, "Plant Life: Growing a Garden in the Pacific Northwest" (Sasquatch Books, 2002) is an updated selection of her magazine columns. Her e-mail address is vjeaston@aol.com.