KINGSTON — After the popular Heronswood Nursery was uprooted by the Pennsylvania based W. Atlee Burpee Company and moved to the east coast, it felt like the sun would never shine on the property or its green thumbed fans again.

But with an anonymous offer of up to $25,000 made at the beginning of December, the garden that remains on 288th Street may have a chance to take root.

“We’re trying to preserve the gardens for educational and research purposes,” said Pacific Northwest Horticultural Conservancy chairwoman Lee Neff. “The property is on the market, and we are negotiating with Burpee for it. We were faced with raising the money, and now that’s eased a little.”

The donation offered by the anonymous donor through the Kitsap Community Foundation is in the form of a matching donation, with a minimum of $10,000 to a maximum of $25,000, said KCF executive director Jennifer Green. If the PNHC doesn’t raise at least $10,000 by the end of the year, the donation seed money will land on fallow ground.

“Oftentimes, major campaigns will set up a matching gifts fund,” Green said. “It’s very common to see a deadline attached with those gifts.”

The PNHC formed in August in an effort to preserve the gardens and, eventually, reopen them, Neff said. Many of the members have worked at the internationally known nursery before it was uprooted and moved to Pennsylvania in May, Neff said.

“The endowment was set up to generate funds for maintenance, and also to raise money so we can buy the land,” said PNHC fund-raising chairwoman Elizabeth Drury. “We have been in contact with Burpee, and they’ve been very positive about our efforts. We’re hopeful this will all fall together.”

Two PNHC members traveled to Pennsylvania recently to discuss the prospect of buying the gardens with Burpee representatives, Neff said. Company officials were receptive to the idea of the PNHC taking over the property, but broached the question of how the group intended to raise the money to do so, she said.

“The offer to Burpee was acceptable, as long as what we come up with is sufficient,” Neff said. “We had been in contact with the Kitsap Community Foundation, and we were working with them to try and set up a fund. Then, just out of the blue someone offered the matching grant through the foundation, and we have until the end of the year to make up at least $10,000. Someone has enough confidence in us, even before we were successful, to have us come up with this money.”

Heronswood nursery co-founders Dan Hinkley and Robert Jones have not been involved with the group, Drury said. But she hopes they appreciate the work to preserve the gardens nurtured by Hinkley and Jones.

To make a donation

or contact the Pacific

Northwest Horticultural

Conservancy visit

www.weloveplants.org

or call the Kitsap

Community Foundation

at (360) 698-3622