Blue Rouge Garden and Nursery

MOSES LAKE — The big yellow building on W. Broadway Ave. is Kimberly Ries Ashely’s happy place.

“I have been practicing domestic law since 1999. Okay, so I’m one of those divorce lawyers,” Ashley said. “And it’s not an easy job.”

You’re dealing with the most intimate and most important parts of people’s lives, Ashley explained — family, homes, spouses, money, everything many people have spent years putting together is then torn apart.

“It’s extremely stressful and not happy. Even when somebody is glad to get out of a bad relationship,” Ashely said. “They’re having to pay to get out of a bad relationship.”

As Ashley speaks, she sits on an outdoor couch under a bright, warm Columbia Basin sun, surrounded by trees in large pots, vines still recovering from the winter and a long wooden bed of bulbs just beginning to sprout from the dirt. It’s one of the warmest days of the year so far, and Ashley is enjoying every ray of sun she can get.

“I think I spent a lot of time in the gardens on the weekends after work, and it brought a lot of joy and peace to my life,” she explained. “And I thought, what am I doing?”

She hasn’t stopped being an attorney, and her law offices are right next door in the same bright yellow building at 2114 W. Broadway Ave. But Ashley said she wanted to focus her life now on something different, something nurturing, something happy.

“People who shop for plants, they’re generally nurturers by nature. They’re going to take care of the plant, they’re excited to take care of the plant. They’re excited to make their environment appealing to them,” she said.

“It’s … it’s a happy place,” Ashley added.

Ashley formally opened Blue Rouge Garden and Nursery last week at a ribbon cutting attended by employees and members of the Moses Lake Chamber of Commerce. Blue Rouge is not just a place to buy flowers, seeds, pots, soils and fertilizer, Ashley said, though it is that.

“We have lots of annuals and perennials, which are still in the greenhouse because while this week looks great, temperature-wise, I don’t think we’re out of the woods yet,” she said. “You can get seeds; you can get bulbs; you can get onion starts. I have a couple of different varieties of tomatoes coming in next week.”

In addition, Ashley also has a place to sit down, get coffee and have a snack with several giant screens to watch sporting events on and a full beer menu. It’s what she calls “The Dirt Shed” and the idea is to have non-gardening spouses — mostly men, Ashley admits — a place to sit and relax while the family gardener wanders around looking and talking and buying.

“A hangout. Like I said, a happy place,” she mused. “I mean, I love spending my time at home outdoors. Enjoying my gardens. Having a nice cold beer on a Saturday afternoon with friends and looking at my flowers.”

In addition, Ashley showed off her succulent bar where gardeners can come and put together a customized pot of succulents.

“There were a couple of teenagers here, young men, putting together a succulent pot,” she said. “They were just checking in, and I suggested, ‘Hey, you know, this would be a really good idea for a date night.’”

Go to the succulent bar and create a little, potted garden as a memento for the evening. Great way, Ashley said, to impress a date.

“Nice, right? So that was my thinking,” she said.

Ashley said it took her a year to buy the building, and once she closed last fall, the first thing she did was set up her law office. But the color, design and aesthetics of the big yellow building — which one chamber of commerce member wondered was going to be yet another Mexican restaurant — is all inspired by Ashley’s love for Italy, from the layout of the garden all the way down to some of the high-end seed packets she sell.

“My first order was Tuscan pottery, which is still not here,” she said. “I’m waiting anxiously for it because it’s so beautiful. It’s different than anything else you can find in Moses Lake. And I’m trying to be different.”

For Brandi Engle, a gardener herself who is also one of Ashley’s employees, working at Blue Rouge is simply not work for her. Because Engle notes that plants and happiness simply go together.

“Everyone who walks through the door is happy because plants make people happy,” she said.

And that’s what Ashley said she is aiming for in.

“I wanted a happy experience. So I think everything from the color of the building to the music that’s playing to the plants to the setup,” she said. “Everything is aimed at a kind of happy, happy atmosphere.”

Charles H. Featherstone can be reached at cfeatherstone@columbiabasinherald.com

Blue Rouge Garden and Nursery 2114 W. Broadway, Moses Lake

509-766-3972

www.bluerougegarden-nursery.com

Hours:

Tue-Fri 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Sat 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Sun 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Closed Monday.