Lots of great information!! Do you know why they closed? Seems like it was a great place!

Thanks so much--I love catalogs that give great, detailed information like that.

Dang, they did have plenty I would have LOVED to obtain !!

Cheers for this, Rouge. I am poring over such catalogues continually at the moment, choosing what seeds to order from HPS. I can have 30, plus another 20 for my eldest offspring, who is a joint member...so worth the subs for that alone.

One of my treasured garden possessions is a collection of catalogs from the original Heronswood Nursery. Started by renowned plantsman Dan Hinkley and his partner in the late 80's, Heronswood became the preeminent plant collectors mail order nursery in the US before its takeover by Burpees and subsequent closure (it has since been restored as a botanical garden).

Dan is an excellent educator and public speaker and with a deft hand at writing as well and the catalogs are a treasure-trove of growing information as well as highly entertaining horticultural pornography :-)) No illustrations at all, the catalogs are just high quality gardening poetry! I remember haunting the mail box after the first of the year, waiting for the newest copy to arrive. These are fat, thick catalogs, much like a paperback book and I would go through them thoroughly, making notations of what plants I wanted to get for the coming year.

I refer to these catalogs almost constantly....they are a superb resource!!

Yep, Heronswood was really something else and Dan Hinkley is a legend.. Peter Beales rose catalogue was another great resource for me. I used to feel vaguely guilty, getting one, cos I never bought any roses from them, preferring a rival rose nursery (Trevor Whites). Not only a great catalogue, but also an active forum for a few years.

Do you know why they closed? Seems like it was a great place!

@mazerolm_3a, as I recall, the nursery was bought out for a housing development or for a new road...something like that.

Downloaded the manual. Thank you. I am interested in one plant on the home page. The plant fourth from the left looks like a salvia. I love the red and purple shades. Does anybody know what it is? I couldn't find a suitable plant in the salvia section of the catalog,

The plant in question is Lobelia tupa. I would be very skeptical of its suitability for your zone.

I just downloaded it as well, thank you for that rouge! Great garden porn indeed!!