We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Melissa Lallo Johnson a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Melissa, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

In 2019, a very dear family friend asked if I could help with the flowers for her wedding. I was a bit leery since I had never done anything like that before but the bride had a small budget and needed some help. We ended up spending less than $300 to achieve the look of this wedding and it was breathtaking. Through the 2020 season, I grew and harvested many hydrangea, grasses and flowers off of my property and planted large amounts of amaranth at the bride’s grandmother’s farm where the wedding would be held. The wedding was October 10, 2020 and I began harvesting hydrangea to dry in mid September all the way up until the night before the ceremony. The reception and ceremony site were filled with hydrangea. They are such an extremely versatile flower. Accented with the hydrangea, I used wood stumps and crystals from my collection. The overall theme was a “woodland fairytale wedding” and seeing it all come together for her was magical and one of the most beautiful things I’d ever done. After that wedding was over, my baby sister asked if I could do the same thing for her but use live flowers the following year. A bit leery again since I’d not done a large live flower event, I jumped right into it and on September 4, 2021, I pulled off my very first live wedding without a hitch! Both wedding had stunning arrangements that I’ve had in my home since and they are just as pretty today as they were up to two years ago!

Melissa, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My journey over the last decade leading up to today has been one of many twists and turns that I never anticipated. I started gardening as a way to find some joy and stress relief. I was nursing a broken heart back to health after I lost both of my parents in an airplane crash. I needed to find joy. I started with buying the sad looking plants on the clearance rack at Lowe’s and year after year I added to my property. If you look on my Instagram highlights under the “Before/After” tab it’s incredible to see how far this place has come over the years. Once I realized the hydrangea and grasses along with other cut flowers could be dried to keep indoors and use for projects over the winter, I was hooked. I began hoarding hydrangea and currently have over 130 of them on my property in 17 varieties at the last count. From general landscaping to arrangements, projects and more, I have been able to use my property to generate many things that bring me a great sense of joy and accomplishment. Knowing in my heart that my mother who also loved to garden and loved crafting would really get a kick out of the things I create. Fast forward to today, I am the host of Art of Gardening, a podcast and vlog that interviews incredible gardeners from around the world and the vlog focuses on shows that are specific to tips and tricks of keeping up on my own landscaping but even more on showing how I bring the outdoors inside to create through the winter.

Is there a mission driving your creative journey?

I want to share with as many people as possible that nature heals us. Nature is God’s gift to human life to console our pain. When you open your eyes to the vast amount of beauty that is around us, all twelve months of the year, there is something extraordinarily healing about that. To know that every spring is a complete renewal of everything around us is very profound. Nature teaches us to keep moving, don’t stop, thrive, survive and to never, ever, give up. I have even shocked myself in seeing the beauty that I’ve created so easily from looking around and gathering things from the back yard, the woods, roadsides, etc., to morph into something beautiful. I love creating winter pots and arrangements in winter from what is still standing and holds form. My eyes were never open to this before. I thought of winter as a cold, rigid and boring time. Now, I see that winter is full of opportunities to create and I don’t dread it so much. All of us have pain as unfortunately, that is another guarantee of our time here. If we can learn to turn pain into something productive that brings us joy and is a self expression of our time here – living will be easier and more enjoyable for us as we make our way through this life.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.

I used to kill every plant I touched. Now fast forward to today, I still kill plants but not nearly as often. When I hear someone say to me, “I would love to have what you have but I can’t keep plants alive”, this honestly makes me so sad. It was through trial and error and not giving up that I have come to this incredible place of finding creativity that was locked inside of me. I had such a happy life before, I didn’t need the creativity. When I found that I needed something, plants and projects were there to fill up my time and give me many beautiful things to be proud of. I always encourage anyone who wants to learn more about growing plants, a lawn or a vegetable garden, to look into their local university extension office and see if they offer a Master Gardener program. The Master Gardener program through the University of Missouri was a catalyst to everything I have done. It taught me the basics of what I needed, locked me into life long friendships with some of the craziest plant hoarders I have ever met and energized my love for growing things. It’s crazy for me to think about the journey. I have been on and where I started from. When I started, I knew a little to nothing about what I am doing today. Fast forward to today. I now have a sponsorship with Petra Tools in which I host the Art of Gardening show and podcast with them. I interview companies and people from all around the world who have incredible gardening information to share. My hope is that I can teach people through my own journey, that if you stay dedicated to anything it is that you want to achieve, with hard work and persistence, it can become a realization!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.fancyflowerfarmer.com
• Instagram: fancyflowerfarmer – link in bio to watch Art of Gardening episodes
• Facebook: fancyflowerfarmer
• Youtube: Fancy Flower Farmer
• Other: Art of Gardening on YouTube, Spotify and Apple Podcasts