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Plant Life By Valerie Easton

Clippings

Bits of garden news worth noting

The insider iconoclast

Dublin-born BBC gardening star Diarmuid Gavin came to Seattle recently to speak at a jam-packed Northwest Horticultural Society lecture. It was his first trip to the Northwest, although he designs gardens around the world. This guy is such a big deal in England that when his design for this year's Chelsea Flower Show was rejected, it was front-page news.

Gavin wore faded blue jeans and black T-shirt for a young-Brando look, and threw around terms like "posh" and "upmarket" in an Irish brogue. The effect was of a renegade challenging the establishment. The truth is that he designs fabulously expensive gardens from Korea to The Netherlands. These days, he says, he needs to integrate not one helipad but two in many of the gardens he designs.

Over dinner, he told us that the most popular new TV program in England is a reality show about a good-looking young pig farmer and the stock he raises. Honest. Might this British fascination with the earthy and unpretentious explain the success of Gavin's underdog persona? Look for a book in 2007 by Gavin, in collaboration with mogul Terence Conran, featuring gardens for a new generation.

New organics to try

Nursery owners and gardeners have been buzzing about E.B. Stone Organics. The brand is being marketed in as folksy a manner as White Flower Farm, with San Jose fruit farmer E.B. Stone, who developed his own organic fertilizer in 1916, as icon. Is it marketing or is it quality? I'm not sure yet, but I've been impressed with Edna's Best Potting Soil, which includes beneficial microbes and seems to have a perfect texture: loose, rich, but not too rich. The products seem reasonably priced and offer a lovely witch's brew of organics including bat guano and blood meal.

Closer to home is Bailey Compost, made from dairy manure mixed with shredded yard waste. It's advertised as well-aged, which along with the name Bailey's makes it sound like a fine cognac. This, however, is cow manure from the Bailand Farms, the first permitted on-farm compost facility handling yard debris in Snohomish County. Sold in bulk; you pick up or they deliver; 360-568-8826 or www.baileycompost.com.

Now, help to go native

The King County Department of Natural Resources and Parks recently launched an online Northwest-native-plant landscaping guide. It's all about how to use natives in your garden, including lots of color photos, landscaping plans and a searchable database. Need a native for dry shade? You'll find plenty of cultural information and suggestions. The county is asking for feedback on the site; perhaps a good start would be to use a simpler address than http://dnr.metrokc.gov/wlr/pi/go-native/Index.aspx.

Passages and transitions

• The Northwest plant community mourns the death of Parker Sanderson, co-owner of Portland's famed Cistus Nursery. Sanderson, a keen plantsman who, along with partner Sean Hogan, built Cistus into a mecca for plant fanatics, died far too young in his sleep this past April. He was 45.

• Portland's venerable Timber Press, publisher of so many great garden books, was recently sold to Workman Publishing, parent of Artisan Books, Algonquin Books and Storey Publishing. Bob Conklin, who bought Timber in 1989, is leaving to paint and travel, but says he's satisfied that Workman will retain the rest of the staff and keep the press in its longtime home. Conklin thinks we'll see little or no change besides an increased sales capacity. Still, this independent press is now one more imprint of a big New York publisher.

• Northwest gardeners are still reeling over the sudden closure of Heronswood Nursery in Kingston on May 30. We all worried when Dan Hinkley and Robert Jones sold their special property and business to W. Atlas Burpee six years ago, but the two founders remained at the helm, and we were lulled into thinking this treasure was fully appreciated by the new owner, George Ball. Disillusionment set in with the Heronswood "catalog light" this past spring, yet no one anticipated Ball's firing everyone, including Hinkley (Jones had stepped down as director of operations a month earlier). Ball plans to sell the property and ship stock to Pennsylvania. Why buy an internationally famous business and then kill it off?

Perhaps the biggest irony of all is that three days after Ball came west to personally pull the plug on Heronswood, Dan Hinkley traveled to Washington, D.C., to accept the Liberty Hyde Bailey Award from the American Horticultural Society. This is the Oscar of horticulture, given for lifetime achievement. George Ball used to be president of the society.

Valerie Easton is a Seattle freelance writer and contributing editor for Horticulture magazine. Her e-mail address is valeaston@comcast.net.