Monrovia is lucky to be collaborating with one of the finest plant explorers alive today. Daniel J. Hinkley, former co-owner of the renowned Heronswood Nursery near Kingston, Washington, is working with Monrovia to bring new and unique plants to a nursery near you. This is easier said than done - it’s a task that requires travel to remote regions using somewhat primitive collecton methods. All with the hope that what is found will flourish as an ornamental plant in the U.S.
Dan, departs today on a new adventure. His first blog entry is listed below. In the coming days and weeks all of his posts will be under his own byline. His posts will also be posted on his own site, danieljhinkley.com
Dan Hinkley will be returning to the mountains of W. Sichuan this
autumn to the same areas he traveled in 2006, when he photographed
this ladyslipper, Cypripedium tibeticum, in perfect form.
San Francisco, CA
Posting 1
Yeah, ok, I realize that. I said ok, ok? I know I do not write often enough and I know that when I do write, I write too much. There are always other more important things to do than to sit and write: put suet out for the birds…the birds that somehow disjointedly figure into what I was going to write about; weed the part of the garden that has the plant that I was going to write about; take a picture of the plant I was going to write about; collect its seed; remove a dead branch; clean the refrigerator — because it had absolutely nothing to do with the subject I was about to write about. You know the drill. And then, when the dogs are walked and asleep on the banquette and the most up-to-date election polls are examined, I begin to write about what I was meant to write about, at last confronting that bridge to nowhere, while attempting to create a reality that someone will be sufficiently naïve to believe. And then I write too much because there generally is too much too say, especially so when I am saying it, and you end up on a long bridge that leads to nowhere. And sadder still, I know precisely what many of you must be shrieking when you attempt to decipher my infinite, yet, I must say, ever so thoughtful and and witty musings: thanks but no thanks.
For the next 10 weeks, I am going to attempt to get my head around blogging, if I understand at all what blogging actually is. I believe it is somewhat like emailing my mother. I can’t use vulgar language, nor too much Latin nor dwell on disingenuous, transparent choices of running mates from Alaska. I must be concise, the language clean, the pictures pretty. Sounds easy enough.
My disheveled mountain of raingear, polypro underwear, Ziplocs, sieves, Starbucks French Roast and protein bars have been compressed into numerous cases and boxes, each assigned to either China only, China and Vietnam, Vietnam only or Vietnam and Japan. (You might notice an improvement in my writing already; in the past I would have told you that I had packed Atkins Peanut Butter and Chocolate net 2 carb bars, but in my nascent approach to clean writing, I have referred to them refreshingly as simply protein bars). These boxes will be cached across Southeast Asia for subsequent retrieval and restocking, if all goes as planned. One must be never be deprived of Starbucks French Roast nor an occasional Atkins Peanut Butter and Chocolate net 2 carb bar.
So, here I am in San Francisco, awaiting my flight to Hong Kong, wondering what it is I have forgotten, what it is that I will find. In a little over 24 hours from now, I will be reconnecting with good friends Scott McMahon and Ozzie Johnson at the Min Shan Hotel in Chengdu, Sichuan Province. It was from this same celebrated lodging, nearly four years ago to the day, that we had last parted company in China after one of the most exciting collection trips I had ever participated in. I am hoping for a repeat performance. So, here we go again. Stay tuned.
–Daniel J. Hinkley
This entry was posted
on Monday, September 22nd, 2008 at 2:31 pm and is filed under The Plant Explorer.
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