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The Artful Shopper: Gardeners, go east
Shorewood shop satisfies longing for spring
By: Linda Brazill (Published March 25, 2005)
Once spring is officially here, it's hard to look out on a landscape that's still as much white as green.
I'm in full garden mode, even if there's not much actual gardening I can do. I whipped through "The Jewel Garden," Montague and Sarah Don's new book, which I'd ordered from the United Kingdom, n mere days and have highlighted all the plants of interest to me in just-arrived Flower Factory catalog.
So between snowstorms, I hit the road with my husband last weekend in search of a serious garden fix. I found it at the fabulous Garden Room in Shorewood, Wis., a 3 -year-old business that bills itself as "An Urban Garden Store." Hosed in an old auto garage, it offers three floors of treats for gardeners.
The building itself is a treat with an award-winning outdoor rooftop garden (still closed for the season), glassed-in conservatory (also on the roof) and a huge overhead doors - more window than door - which flank the entrance and indicate the store's humble origins.
We arrived cold and hungry and settled in for a "picnic in the garden" at the Anaba Tea Room. This dining area is an atrium at the center of the building. It's defined by urns - rather than rows of columns - o pedestals in the four corners, all draped in growing vines that meet in a cascade above a quietly splashing fountain and spiral upward toward the railing on the main floor.
The area above the dining tables is open to the top floor bathed in a soft glow from the skylight that is part of the outdoor rooftop garden, making an interior space as refreshing and creative as the menu.
But back to lunch: We shared a big cup of curried shrimp soup for starters. (The other soups were tomato veggie and mushroom artichoke, both vegan). I opted for my favorite sandwich - meatloaf - topped with sun-dried tomatoes as well as black olive tapenade with a side salad of baby greens.
My husband got the sliced roasted chicken sandwich with peach chutney and melted Irish Swiss cheese on a plum/oolong scone. His side dish was angel hair pasta tossed in a lime cilantro dressing.
They tasted as good as they sound and were served by an enthusiastic waitress who clearly believed in the product.
My only complaint is the paper table cloths that keep the white linen undercloths clean are an awkward solution to a common restaurant problem, especially when used on round tables.
On the plus side: great mood music. The background tunes are clearly designed for the employees who spend the day in the shop, so we listened to the Allman Brothers during lunch. I loved it, especially since the volume was appropriately subdued.
And the intimate space around the dining area - the Atrium Gallery - was filled with original art by Judy Dunphy. The exhibit, "Organic Compassion Series: Interconnections," included large scale prints and small artist's books, made by Dunphy during a residency at the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology in Oregon.
It was pure pleasure to sit surrounded by this personal vision of nature cheek by jowl with retail merchandise including piles of pots, planters and one stunning antique sculpture that conjured up Shelley's "Ozymandias."
"I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert...
In this case, a pair of stone feet and ankles rested atop a 4-foot-high stone pedestal nestled into the corner. The rest of the monumental figure, like Ozymandias, is long gone but you can get the feet for $2,600.
Upstairs I found the owner Deborah Kern staffing the counter. Kern, a legal secretary for more than 15 years and an avid, albeit self-taught, gardener, found herself frustrated that she couldn't find the kind of garden accessories and tools she wanted.
"I thought other folks must be just as frustrated, so I embarked on this journey." Kern's trip has produced plenty of rewards for other gardening enthusiasts.
For starters, the shop offers a whole section of garden antiques that Kern finds at flea markets, when she can find the time to get away from the store. Otherwise she relies on her own "pickers" to find what's she's looking for, or on folds who show up serendipitously with garden items they've unearthed "while cleaning out the basement."
The shop is crammed with wonderful things loosely organized by theme. Thus you'll find a corner filled with antiques from seed packets to sprinkler heads; a section with Asian-influenced items like Foo dogs and bamboo deer scares; the kid-friendly area has toys, tools and cool clothes as well as a funky couch and rug for relaxing in front of the bookcase packed with nature titles for tots.
The tool corner alone is extraordinary with tools by de Ban Koek (Netherlands), Clarington Forge (U.K.), Owl (Japan) and Fiskars, to name just a few brands offered. Then there are watering cans, garden shoes and kneelers, a serious selection of garden books, jewelry, toys. Just about anything you might wish for, Kern ahs provided.
Case in point: the reading room where you can sit onm tyhe plush 1930's couch or in the Victorian armchair covered in floral needlepoint and freely browse a large selection of garden and horticulture books.
Painted on the wall above the bookshelves in the cozy in-store reference library is a quote by Cicero": "If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need." The Garden Room clearly provides everything Kern needs, and it can do the same for you.
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