Oxford's dirty business

A gas station-turned-plant shop is a perfect spot for an OIL change.

- SARAH RUSSELL

Landscaping can speak volumes, and much effort and planning go into the statement our lawns and gardens make. Yet often, that stops at our front door. Few of us skillfully use plants to enhance our interior decor. Often that results from uncertainty about what works. But Oxford has some specialists happy to advise which plants will live happily ever after in our homes and workplaces.

Nothing about this business is what we’ve come to expect from plant shopping. Yes, technically speaking, the OIL Shed is an indoor garden shop. Starting with its name—OIL being an acronym for Oxford Interior Landscaping—the store was meant to be multi-dimensional. The store’s co-owner, Wendy Carmean, explains that their concept was “to create a different experience, an escape.”

The escape starts by locating the Oxford Canteen on Lamar Boulevard. Among other things, the building was once a gas station. Around back was its oil shed, which, in a manner of speaking, it still is—albeit the transformed OIL Shed. The fact that you can even get your hands dirty here hasn’t changed either.