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-G. Maria Carlos, Certified Professional Horticulturist, Garden Consultant & Dusty Vonberg, RN, Partner, Bird- Watcher

Local gardeners who sought the newest, most interesting plants in cultivation from this nursery, will now rely on others. Visitors who relied on the garden to teach them about new plants will now find inspiration elsewhere.

There may be hope: Some former docents are forming the Pacific Northwest Horticultural Conservancy, a non-profit organization to create an education & research facility at the property previously known as Heronswood. More about this as our website gets going: www.weloveplants.org.  If you would like to help, with a donation, a fundraising event, or volunteer time, visit the website.

• Song sparrow calls echo in mist that hangs in soft shredded layers among the Douglas Firs.
• Miscanthus sinensis ‘Morning Light’ glows across the nursery, when backlit in early autumn.
• In late winter, Stachyurus praecox flowers hang in fat chains of pale yellow, like jewels, or rosaries.
• Shafting through the conifers, spring sunlight spotlights the glow of Dicentra ‘Goldheart’.
• Chartreuse Robinia pseudoacacia ‘Frisia’ takes my breath away every time I see it in the woodland.
• Scent of Cardiocrinum giganteum filled the air in June, when I was privileged to share the garden with Mom in return for her introducing me to gardening 40+ years ago.
• Friendships began & deepened in this garden, as we shared plant lust and hallmark life events.
• I gained the courage to try unfamiliar plants, learning their culture from this garden.
• Rare plants, only recently introduced to cultivation, now grow in my own & friends’ gardens. What a gift!

The sequence was always the same. We’d walk quickly down the drive, only to be distracted by a plant in its glory. I’d identify it & then others, sometimes from memory, more often by searching for the number on a blue tag buried in the ground, & looking it up in the blue inventory notebook. Getting the number on the blue tag often required tiptoeing carefully into a densely planted bed with my size 11’s & twisting my body (like the old game of Twister) to get my eyes closer to the tag, which was invariably upside down. I’d repeat the number, over & over, until I could untwist my body & carefully climb back out of the bed to flip through the inventory. After all that, sometimes the number wasn’t listed, or the tag I’d read was for a different plant. Thankfully, no one made me repeat the process more than twice for a single plant.

An important docent role was to keep visitors out of the garden beds. Once, when I was in the middle of one, my butt in the air & face peering close to the base of a special shrub, another docent appeared on the path, sternly ordering me out of the bed. 3 times. She couldn’t hear my response from behind the shrub: “it’s ok, I’m a docent.” I had to untwist my body & step out so she could see my nametag & blue notebook, in the process, forgetting the number. With a quick smile, I dove back in to get the forgotten number. Untwisting my body again, I looked it up in the blue notebook: Rhododendron sp. Docenting, like gardening, taught humility.

• The 2 friends say they don’t want to use up their first visit inside at a lecture. When they confess how overwhelmed they are, I suggest they get oriented by listening to Dan’s talk first, then see the garden, then shop. Hours later, as they shop in the nursery, I ask if they went to Dan’s talk. Their now relaxed and blissful faces give the answer.
• I expect the unassuming older woman to ask for Geraniums (Pelargoniums.) But, she asks for pink Hepaticas, & promises to be back for more with next month’s check. I learn not to assume anything based on a customer's appearance.
• 2 gardeners huddle over a small treasure in the nursery, catalog open, one reading the description to the other, their faces full of the image of the mature plant, drawn by Dan’s words. That rapturous experience brought many of us back time and again.