Rachel Brownlee

Flower Grower and Designer

Asheville, North Carolina

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Urban or countryside, botanicals find their way into most all spaces, striking a conversation between us, them, and the places we live. Blooming dandelion shouldering through cracked asphalt, hillsides of wild lupine, desert cactus flowers opening under the moon for those wide-eyed nightime pollinators, plants are time keepers and storytellers.

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30 years later, the scent of a peony can trace a memory right back to the details of your wedding day. Fresh cut grass or fragrant vines of honeysuckle brushing your shoulders during a morning walk tells us right where we are in the rotation of the seasons while marking the memories we collect throughout our lives on this lush, mysterious planet.

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In 2017, I founded Mountain Floral on the principal of this extraordinary dialogue between us and plants. Eavesdropping on this conversation began over 25 years ago, during a 5 year apprenticeship on a buzzing organic flower farm in Central Pennsylvania. During those early days transplanting seedlings and weeding endless rows, the plants murmured in a private whisper among themselves, the soil, winged insects, songbirds and impending stormclouds, eventually gaining enough volume to speak straight to my heart. They have been guiding the art of conversation ever since. 

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Support for this platform has been overwhemingly fruitful as others join the chorus. ​​Celebrating a union of love or among a small group of workshop participants, the language of botany has been deeply communal and bountiful. 

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Thank you for being here.

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Photo credit: Laura Coppelman Photography

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