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This Professional Plant Hunter's Garden Is as Amazing as You'd Expect



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 1. Home & Garden
 2. Landscaping


THIS PROFESSIONAL PLANT HUNTER’S GARDEN IS AS AMAZING AS YOU’D EXPECT

Daniel J. Hinkley’s iconic garden, Windcliff, is a map of his adventures as a
plant hunter and a life well lived.

Thomas J. Story
Written by Deanna Kizis April 18, 2023
Share this story


When I think of a plant hunter—as in, someone who goes to places like South
Africa, Vietnam, China, and Nepal to find rare species and bring them back to
the United States—I imagine a swashbuckling Indiana Jones type running through
the mountains complete with hat and whip. And to hear famed plant collector,
horticulturist, and botanist Daniel Hinkley tell it, there is a bit of
daredevilry to the job. “I’ve had hard treks, bad knees, bee stings, and leeches
hanging from my neck,” he says. “But if I am lucky, plant collecting offers me a
bit of seed, and the resulting plant possesses all of the memories associated
with it.”


Plant hunter Dan Hinkley and his husband, architect Robert L. Jones, worked
together to create Windcliff.

Thomas J. Story

When he’s not covered in leeches, Hinkley can be found in his famed garden,
Windcliff, in Indianola, Washington, which extends across six-and-a-half acres
on a south-facing bluff high above Puget Sound. It is a garden of astonishing
beauty—the culmination of a plant man’s incomparable eye and vast expertise on
how to nurture living things.

Hinkley fell in love with plants at the age of five. He remembers his first time
sowing seeds of morning glories and gourds with his father, and although he
can’t explain what exactly the attraction was, he soon promoted himself to head
vegetable gardener. This in a family that grew up during the Great Depression
and, frankly, didn’t understand why he couldn’t just buy canned beans if he
wanted them so much. By high school, Hinkley was collecting houseplants and
orchids while studying what grew around him in Northern Michigan. Multiple
degrees in horticulture soon followed.


Windcliff sits on a bluff above Puget Sound.

Thomas J. Story


Hydrangea aspera ‘Villosa,’ which Hinkley collected by seed in Sichuan Province,
China, in 1996.

Thomas J. Story

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In the late eighties Hinkley opened the world-renowned garden and nursery,
Heronswood, in Kingston, Washington, with his then-partner, now-husband, Robert
L. Jones. This is when Hinkley began to make his mark. Eager to showcase rare
finds—and to follow in the footsteps of his Victorian plant-hunting heroes,
George Forrest and E.H. Wilson—he took three months off to search for plants in
South Korea. He says he did it because he was drawn to do it, and soon found
plant hunting came naturally to him. “I’ve always had that travel bug, so travel
and looking at plants was a given for me,” Hinkley says. “It always astounded me
that I could be anywhere in the world and people could come up to me and say,
‘What is there to do around here?’ And I’d be like, ‘What are you talking about?
Look at the forest that’s all around.’” He says he still feels that anywhere he
goes he has entertainment—all he has to do is look out the window and stare at
the plants.


Hinkley uses Cortaderia fulvida flowers as a grass.

Thomas J. Story


A new hybrid, Alstroemeria ‘Indian Summer,’ which is native to the Southern
Andes.

Thomas J. Story

When I first communicated with Hinkley, it had to be over email because he was
plant hunting in Vietnam on two surgically replaced knees that “got him up the
mountains.” I told him it’s hard to imagine how one could procure the seeds of
an undiscovered plant from the midst of an entire jungle, but Hinkley says it’s
not exactly like that. He has an idea of where to look; usually it’s a place
that’s least explored. In this case, he was in an area that was only recently
opened to botanists because it was heavily mined during the Vietnam war. There
he found a brand-new species of loropetalum (evergreens related to witch hazels)
and magnolia—discoveries that, he says, “thrilled him.”


Hand-cast ceramic sculptures by Dustin Gimbel.

Thomas J. Story


The foliage of a hardy ginger, Hedychium maximum.

Thomas J. Story

Ninety-nine percent of what Hinkley does happens after he’s collected the seeds
of what he suspects is a “new” plant. (I use quotation marks, because, as he
points out, the plants are already known to the people who live in the
area—they’re just new to us in the West.) First, Hinkley gets the seeds to the
USDA. Then, if approved, he has to germinate them, and then he has to bring them
to flower, which could take 20 years if it’s a tree. Finally, he needs to find
an expert in the genus to look at the plant, confirm that it as an interesting
prospect, and send a sample to yet another expert, usually at a university. Only
with careful confirmation can he declare he’s found a plant that’s “new to us.”


More sculptures in the garden.

Thomas J. Story

Which brings us to Windcliff, the personal garden Hinkley started when he sold
Heronswood over two decades ago. All around the property are specimens that
Hinkley collected over decades of plant-hunting adventures, from giant-leaved
Gunnera tinctoria, which he found in Chile in 1998, to Geranium x oxonianum
‘Katherine Adele’, a hearty and pink-petaled plant that he named for his
husband’s mother. Geographically speaking, the garden is carefully arranged, but
in a casual way. (This isn’t the gardens at the Palace of Versailles, Dieu
merci.) To the north is woodland, a meadow, and an arboretum; to the south one
can find a pond, a bog, terraces, Hinkley’s beloved vegetable garden, waves of
violet agapanthus, and a heavily planted bluff with enormous fir trees that
frame the sea. It’s a place positively packed with plants and a living
laboratory of sorts, since Hinkley plants his finds in the garden to see how
they do.


The “council ring.”

Thomas J. Story

To create Windcliff, Hinkley commissioned a “council ring” by mosaic artist
Jeffrey Bayle, which acts as the heart of the garden, a place where friends
gather for fireside chats. He then tackled a third of an acre at a time. Jones,
who is an architect, created the terraces and designed the house, while Hinkley
relied on his mind’s eye for plant placement, rather than mapping everything
out. When designing a garden, he considers textural differences in foliage,
height differences, fragrance, seasonality, and overall balance. He also isn’t
afraid to go against conventional wisdom, like when he decided to interrupt the
expansive view of Puget Sound with plants. “If one has to work a bit for a
beautiful view, it makes it more beautiful,” Hinkley says. “I do not feel it is
necessary to sit in a BarcaLounger and survey my entire property.”


A developing seed head on a Magnolia sapaensis, collected by seed in northern
Vietnam in 1999.

Thomas J. Story

Surprisingly, Hinkley doesn’t employ a large staff to maintain the garden; he
does it himself with the help of his employee of nine years, Eduardo Montes. To
finance the maintenance, Hinkley sells plants out of his nursery, which can only
be shopped in person. The online catalogue is worth a read. Of Acer griseum, a
tree of wild origin, Hinkley writes that it’s so beautiful “you should plant it
for yourself and your children.” Agapanthus ‘Jamaica Kincaid’, meanwhile,
flowers with “a blue somewhat deeper in color than the perfectly blue skies you
once remembered a long time ago.” Fortunately, although plants can’t be shipped,
visitors can see the garden and shop the nursery at Windcliff three days a week
by appointment.


An aerial view of Windcliff.

Thomas J. Story

Although I still can’t help but imagine plant hunters as hacking through
acid-green jungles to chop down large plant stalks by racing rivers, I have been
convinced that it is, in fact, not quite so cinematic. Hinkley looks for plants
not in spring but in the fall, when they have gone to seed. “I feel at age 70
the number of autumns I’m going to get to do is starting to diminish, but I
still want to do it,” Hinkley says. “Even though I can be completely exhausted
by the garden and by propagating, the next day I’m in it again. The fuel cells
never stop pumping.”


PLANT DANIEL J. HINKLEY’S DISCOVERIES IN YOUR OWN BACKYARD

Plantsman Hinkley has been lauded by one prestigious horticulture organization
after another, and is something of a rock star on the botanical lecture circuit.
Martha Stewart calls him a “horticulturist extraordinaire.” Meanwhile, Jonathan
Pedersen, CEO of plant grower Monrovia, says, “There are plant hunters, and then
there is Dan Hinkley. His importance to the world of gardening cannot be
overstated.” 

Perhaps because he is a famous plant hunter, Hinkley is careful to point out
that his expeditions are entirely aboveboard. “When many people hear what I do,
their immediate assumption is that I smuggle seeds back in my suitcase,” he
says. However, he has all the necessary permits to bring seeds or plants out of
a country and into the U.S., and he avoids plants that are bio-invasive with
help from the University of Washington. Here, six of Hinkley’s discoveries that
you can buy from Monrovia’s Dan Hinkley Collection.

1 of 6Monrovia by DoreenWynja.com Photography


WINDCLIFF SLATEY BLUE HELLEBORE

Native to Asia. See more info here.



2 of 6Monrovia by DoreenWynja.com Photography


PURPLE POTION AGAPANTHUS

From South Africa. See more info here.



3 of 6Monrovia by DoreenWynja.com Photography


HEAVENLY ASCENT HOLBOELLIA VINE

Indigenous to Asia. See more info here.



4 of 6Monrovia by DoreenWynja.com Photography


JURASSIC PTERODACTYL (ANTHURIUM OTOPHORUM)

Native to Japan and East Asia. See more info here.



5 of 6Monrovia by DoreenWynja.com Photography


ORANGE PEEL JESSAMINE

From South America. See more info here.



6 of 6Monrovia by DoreenWynja.com Photography


WINDCLIFF FRAGRANT PACHYSANDRA

Native to Asia. See more info here.





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