A tropical paradise in downtown Olympia offers a refuge for indoor gardeners

Jill Severn

Underhill Plants
117 Washington Street
Olympia, WA 98501
View larger map

Alden Davis’ gardening life started with vegetables. “At first, I didn’t understand why anyone would grow plants you couldn’t eat,” he says. Eventually, he branched out, so to speak, to growing flowers. Then, one winter – the time when gardeners get bored – he started fooling around with houseplants.

Now he’s the proprietor of Underhill Plants, a delightful haven of green and growing indoor plants on Washington Street between State and 4^th Ave. in downtown Olympia.

Davis is an Olympia native. He’s the son of two marine biologists; he grew up spending a lot of time outdoors in the green world, so plants were always part of his life. But houseplants slowly became an ever-bigger part of his life, especially after he learned to propagate them. Soon he had so many plants he started drilling drain holes in the bottoms of repurposed containers from thrift stores. He started trading plants on Facebook to pay for his hobby.

Then he progressed to doing pop-up markets at local bars. “Those were surprisingly successful,” he says.

When he complained to a friend that he was sick of his boring daytime desk job and wished he could run a plant store, his friend said, “Well why don’t you?” Lacking a good answer, he rose to the challenge.

He attended sessions at the Small Business Development Center at the South Puget Sound Community College, which he found very helpful. He talked to everyone he could, and talking brought many “lucky moments” of connection to resources and ideas. He found a good landlord and ran a successful GoFundMe campaign, which, combined with his own savings, launched Underhill Plants.

He opened his first store in downtown Olympia on 4^th and Franklin in December 2019, just a couple of months before the pandemic. Interestingly, nurseries and plant stores were classified as essential businesses that could stay open – not because they would keep gardeners from going insane, but because of their association with growing food. He survived the pandemic with pick-ups, some deliveries, an outdoor alcove, and a cautious reopening after just one month’s closure.

Now the store’s in a better, more beautiful location – it used to house Mansion Glass – with both a spacious ground floor and a second floor where he intends to host workshops, classes, and artists’ events. He is concerned that the second floor isn’t ADA accessible, though, and might also make space for events on the ground floor. He’s already planning a place to make custom mixes at a “mix-your-own soil bar” on the ground floor, along with repotting services.

Last Sunday, we chatted in the midst of all his greenery as a steady stream of customers shopped, exclaimed happily at what they found, and ogled all the pots, the macrame, tchotchkes, blooming Christmas cacti, and plants ranging from very tiny to truly enormous.

“People are coming back downtown.” he says, “It’s really been noticeable in the last few months.” And plenty of them are walking through his door.

There is much to celebrate here: a native son’s success, a new asset for Olympia’s downtown, a refuge for gardeners in winter, and the store’s first post-pandemic holiday season.

It’s a wonderful destination for people who already love plants and those who soon will.

Underhill  Plants is having its Third Anniversary Sale this weekend. It will be open both Saturday and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and will have extended hours for the holiday season. You can follow them on Instagram @underhillplants.

Jill Severn writes from her home in Olympia, where she grows vegetables, flowers, and a small flock of chickens. She loves conversation among gardeners. Start one by emailing her at  jill@theJOLTnews.com