Down to Earth in Eugene

Books, coffee, and plants. Three of my favorite things and while visiting my sister last weekend, that was our agenda. She lives in Eugene, Oregon a couple hours south of me.  On a visit last year I helped her plant at her office garden work party. She works for an insurance company and their office provides a very nice raised bed garden for veggies. The employees can work for food and the rest goes to the food bank.

All the plants and seed had come from a store called Down to Earth. I was intrigued because I was told that they grow their plants from Territorial Seed. Ever since I've been wanting to visit Down to Earth. Apparently it is so popular there are two stores.

Once I got there we had lunch at Go Healthy Cafe, a local restaurant that offers gluten free "fast food", my sister really goes there for the lemon bars. Next we went to Smith Family Bookstore. If you've been to Powell's Books in Portland, this is a smaller version. I found the gardening section, which took up most of an entire wall. University of Oregon is in Eugene, and they have a Landscape Architecture program, which I'm guessing contributes to the sheer volume of used gardening books in this store. 

Smith Family Bookstore

We left the bookstore and walked about a block to The 5th St. Beanery for tea and coffee. We finally made our way next door to Good Earth Home Garden & Gift, where I was just blown away. It is housed in an old mill, starting from one end to the other it includes: kitchen supply, soaps, candles, gifts, bird houses, yard supply and ending outdoors in the nursery. It's got character and just about one of everything I could possibly want.

Down to Earth kithen supplies

Down to Earth garden supplies

The nursery was smaller than I expected. But they had a selection of succulents for my sister to choose from. I found a flower I'd only seen on Pinterest, Gentian, in a deep cobalt blue. I had to admire a clever take on green roofs that the bird lovers in my family would like.

Gentian (love this)

Bird house with a roof garden

So, I finally made it to Down to Earth and boy was it worth the wait. I look forward to going back there and finding the other store. We spent the afternoon doing a little more shopping and dinner. Sunday she had planned a trip to a "rhododendron garden", that was another nice surprise. I will continue with that in the next blog post.