At Indoor Sun the skies are not cloudy all day

Originally published Saturday, September 20, 1997

By JON HAHN  
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER COLUMNIST

Out on the edge of the University District, past all the body-piercing parlors, coffee shops and shoe stores, is a little oasis of bright lights, green living things and gurgling fountains and waterfalls.

And pretty plants that eat nasty little insects.

Jerry Addington is the hands-on specialist in exotic plants at the Indoor Sun Shoppe, a fecund little place that smells and sounds like it's alive. Except, of course, for all those dead flies and gnats that are slowly being digested by the Venus' flytraps, sundews and pitcher plants in the front window.

"I just love these little things!" Addington said, reaching down to fondle the fronds of a glistening sundew plant in the front window. More than two decades ago, Jerry was a University of Washington student with a fondness for growing plants when he walked into the shop at 911 N.E. 45th St. to sell some of his botanical specimens.

"I had grown them under lights in my basement here," he explained. "They kept buying them and I kept coming back until one day, I was working on the other side of the counter, and this is where I've been ever since."

Addington commutes to the University District from his Stanwood home, where he and his wife maintain a 3,000-square-foot greenhouse for growing indoor plants, particularly the exotic carnivores he sells to Indoor Sun and other shops.

Indoor Sun Shoppe is more than a little ray of sunshine in the gray Seattle winter: It's one of the largest sources of artificial lighting for plants and people, especially those (people, not plants) trying to deal with seasonal affective disorder, said to Shaun Murphy, manager and son of owner/founder Steve Murphy.

It's hard to be sad once you're inside. Even the plants look happy and well-fed in the crowded but well-lit and slightly humid 2,500-square-foot interior that's more like a conservatory. "Just look at all the gnats on this sundew," said Addington, lifting the delicate collection of glistening fronds from a tray. "And these pitcher plants can be digesting up to 100 flies apiece," he said, nodding to the larger stalks.

At Indoor Sun, you can drop anywhere from $10 to $400 for specialized artificial lighting to keep away the winter blues while you're keeping your plants alive. You can even get a Dawn & Dusk Simulator (from $130 to $200), programmed to gradually fill your room with a warming wakeup glow on those Seattle mornings when sunshine is nothing more than a concept.

You don't have to show your I.D. or register with authorities to buy artificial lights strong enough to grow various exotic plants in your basement, attic or the old Volkswagen bus out back. "We have no way of knowing what you want to grow, of course," said Addington. "But if someone happens to mention that he's trying to grow something illegal, then we tell him to go somewhere else.

"Everything here, from the plants to the waterfalls and the lighting, are all to make your little space more natural," Addington said, stroking his bushy beard. "Our lives today are pretty cut off from nature. We live and work in little office or laboratory cubicles, and we have to do what we can to make that more natural."

For many years, that meant a tough ol' Sansevieriaor Mother-in-law Tongue, "that plant your grandmother always had, because even she couldn't kill it!" Addington quipped. "And they are tough. We had one fall off a windowsill behind a couch, where it went undiscovered, without water or light, for three months. And it was still alive when we moved the couch and found it!"

Those, and others such as Christmas cactus and the ubiquitous jade plant, are the Fords and Chevies of the indoor plant world. But for as little as $1.29, you can get a small potted plant for the windowsill.

"People often think they can place plants like furniture, but plants need more light to survive and grow than you and I need to read," Addington emphasized.

Some plants, such as the Mimosa pudica, or the so-called Sensitive Plant, sort of grow on you as well, Addington said, pinching one tiny leaflet on the edge of said plant's palmy frond and watching the other leaflets fold tightly together.

"The flytraps are very popular with teachers and school kids," he added, for the same reason: they can watch them do their usual, and very unusual, thing -- catching flies. With a tiny shred of paper, he demonstrated how the plant's trigger hairs can distinguish between a raindrop hitting one hair or an unfortunate fly triggering two hairs . . . Chomp!

If even smaller creatures, such as spider mites, start chomping on your plants, you can counterattack with special predator mites and other "good" bugs sold here, said shop staffer John McNinch. "Some are so voracious that they can't be stored together because if they don't get something to attack and eat, they'll start eating one another," he said.

Indoor Sun also has a whole room of pumps and fittings and all the rocks and gravels and special pottery needed to make your own gurgling interior fountain, complete with live, moisture-loving plants. Small running fountains gurgle background sound through the shop like Hoh rain-forest streams.

"We began carrying waterfalls and fountains about two years ago, and that part of the business has been growing ever since," said Murphy. "About 90 percent of them use hand-thrown ceramic bowls by local potters. . . . They're also useful because they provide moisture needed by many of the plants."

Indoor Sun Shoppe also has one other thing desperately needed by most U District folks: Free parking behind the shop.

Jon Hahn is a staff columnist who writes three times a week in the P-I.