Saw this message on another site. Anyone been to Heronswood?

September 7 Heronswood is having an open house! You can tour the gardens, and in the afternoon there will be lectures. Tribal art, music and food venders. Unlike the good old days, they are not selling their own plants, but apparently there will be venders from various local nurseries there. Heronswood has been bought by the Port Gamble S'klallam Tribe, and Dan Hinkley is helping them. Sounds very interesting.
http://www.heronswood.com/

I have never been, but have certainly heard a lot about it. I might be interested in attending, will have to check calendar. Anyone else from my neck of the woods? Carpool?

We ended up making a spur of the moment jaunt up north to the gardens. The gardens are not in very good shape, but presentable. I understand that the garden was stripped of many of the unusual plants. The flowers were full of bees and it was a great relaxing day.
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Beautiful pictures Jewell. I went to the Heronswood second opening about 2 months ago and bought some great plants at the plant sale. I was able to hear the talk given by Dan Hinkley on the history of Heronswood. By the way, if you ever get to hear him speak he is great... very funny and explained things well. He explained that he and his partner lived there and created the garden over time while building Heronswood as a rare plant nursery. Dan would travel around the world and bring back plants to propagate. He had a slideshow so you could see how beautiful things used to be, how they looked when the tribe recently purchased it and then you can see for yourself how it looks now. He sold Heronswood to Burpee and apparently they tried to maintain it for a while. My understanding (not necessarily based on the lecture) is that Burpee essentially took all the rare plants from the nursery and the house garden and moved them to the east coast. They were buying up many nurseries at that point. Eventually they filed bankruptcy and there was a bunch of legal things that happened. Recently the tribe that is there on the Islnad bought the Heronswood property and its being rebuilt slowly. From speaking with people who had gone to the first opening... it had come a long way by the time the second opening happened. But it was kinda sad to see the slideshow and see how beautiful it used to be. But at the same time it sounds like there was a lot of hope for the future of the garden with the new tribes resources and the volunteers that were helping. Wish I could have gone to the last opening... but look forward to next year! It would be a fun ATP field trip!

Kelliarm, Hinkley was there for a lecture, but I didn't attend it. Will have to make time next time. It was a great day for my husband and I to bond, but he isn't into plants or gardens so stayed in the car and read a book.

Got a couple of plants that I had really been wanting also. It was a nice drive up the peninsula that we hadn't made before.

Hi Jewell... glad you were able to go... too bad the hubby isn't into plants. I have to admit, my husband isn't either, but I drag him along anyway... I go to enough of his goofy (oops, I mean deeply meaningful to him) conventions and shows. I'm looking forward to Heronswood next year and seeing what another year does. There's another great nursery I like to go to in Port Townsend... Far Reaches Farm. And then there's another nursery right next to Heronswood I've heard about that I;d like to go to. I think I'll make a day of it next spring!