Abruptly, an End Comes for a Garden Shangri-La

This is just tragic. Heronswood nursery probably never made a whole lot of money, and Burpee shouldn't have bothered buying it. My guess is that this outcome was predictable long ago. The quote from Hinkley is telling.

ON May 30, the Heronswood Nursery gardens in Kingston, Wash., the horticultural paradise that Daniel J. Hinkley and Robert Jones started 19 years ago with a single truckload of rare plants — which eventually grew into a collection that would change the face of American gardening — were closed by W. Atlee Burpee & Company, the nursery's corporate owner. Mr. Hinkley said in a telephone interview that George Ball, Burpee's C.E.O., and three of his staff members came that day from Burpee's Pennsylvania properties to dismiss Mr. Hinkley and most of the nursery's 24 employees.

Mr. Hinkley said that there had been early signs of trouble after Burpee bought Heronswood six years ago, but that the nursery had continued to operate pretty much as it had. Still, he said, he and Mr. Jones spent "six years waiting for the crash you know is coming."

It is an increasingly familiar story, in this industry and others: a small specialty nursery known for unique plants is bought by a larger company hoping to take advantage of its cutting-edge appeal and to get new plants for mass marketing. What ensues is invariably a loss of diversity — as the new owner narrows the selection of plants, choosing mainly those it thinks will have mass appeal — and, often, a loss of the vision that made the nursery attractive to begin with.

Link: Abruptly, an End Comes for a Garden Shangri-La - New York Times.