Mother and daughter owners shine up Apple Green

Photos by Esther K. Smith
Cheryl Wilson, left, and Bobbi Settje opened their downtown gardening supply shop in December. Items range from the whimsical to the functional, and plenty
in between such as pottery and candles.

By ESTHER K. SMITH
News staff writer
March 18, 2006

Newly planted in downtown Hood River is Apple Green, the perfect store for green thumbs — and thumbs of any other color.

Co-owners Cheryl Wilson and her daughter, Bobbi Settje, have filled the store, located below Discover Bicycles in the old Franz building, with hard-to-find gardening tools and other favorite items.

“We try to have things that you can’t get in a typical store,” Wilson says. “These tools are lifetime tools, the sort that people pass down to the next generation.”

Settje points to some classic metal watering cans.

“These are another example of quality lifetime tools,” she says. “After they sit in a garden shed for 50 years, people collect them.”

The mother-daughter team has been talking about opening a store like this for two or three years, but didn’t have the right combination of resources and opportunity until late 2005 when Red Fish Blue Fish relocated to Oak Street, leaving behind the perfect space for their garden store.

After a paint job — including one apple-green wall with a branching tree graphic painted in white by another daughter, Skye — new hardwood floor, more lighting and other changes, Apple Green opened its doors for business Dec. 9.

Tools are but a fraction of what the store has to offer. Garden shoes (clog type and “Crocs,” which are also good for boating and jobs requiring a lot of standing or walking), gloves, books, kids’ stuff, seeds, bird feed, and pots are just some of the items Wilson and Settje have hand-picked for their customers.

Wherever possible, the owners have chosen things made in Oregon of organic and natural materials.

They carry a line of bath and body products made in Bend with organic, vegetable-based ingredients; no petroleum products.

The seeds are certified organic and contain no genetically modified organisms or pesticides.

Though they don’t have floor space for displaying furniture, Wilson and Settje will take special orders for wicker furniture or other large items; they can also work with landscape designers on special needs they may have.

They do have large planters, made of lightweight fiber plate, which would appeal to someone who is looking for something more architectural, Settje says.

The space the store occupies used to be part of the Franz Hardware store, and two of the display tables date back to the early days of that store.

“This table was used for cutting rope and chains,” Wilson says. She added that Pete Jubitz, whose retirement closed Franz Hardware at the end of 2003, had been into her store and was very pleased.

“He was pretty excited that we used the furniture, and was pretty excited about this business. He and his wife saw a place similar to this when they were in Victoria, B.C.”

While it’s true that gardening enthusiasts will find much to be enthused about in Apple Green (including a 10 percent discount for Master Gardeners and garden club members), you don’t have to be a gardener, or even know one, to find something to love.

Decorative items for home and garden such as candles (some pear-scented) and solar garden art, soaps and vases would please even the plant-killers among us.

“We hope it’s a place where people will come and be inspired,” Settje says.

“We’re not experts but we’re hoping to be a place where people can come for information and we can help them find out what they need to know.”