We were lucky to catch up with Rose Champagnie recently and have shared our conversation below.

Rose, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

I just created a botanical arrangement for the funeral of a hypothetical small child. This is my most meaningful project to date because of where it will lead my work how it joins multiple sides of my creative impetus.

Because of who I am and how I think, this is more of a collage/puzzle/textile than a story, but one of my big goals right now is to express who I am more freely, so here you go and you are very welcome.

Background.

A-side

My ancestors are from the tropical rainforest of what is now Côte d’Ivoire, the temperate rainforest of modern day England, and the alpine forest of what is now Italy. I was blessed to be born in the temperate rainforest region of the Coast Salish people in the Pacific Northwest. The forest blood runs deep, my parents raised me to be in awe of and inquisitive about my natural surroundings, and I am quite planty by nature.

B-side

I knew early on that I wanted a creative profession. I studied and worked in architecture, but the heart and center of all my creative work has long been poetry.

C-side

Kindness, generosity, love and compassion are the qualities I want to cultivate in myself and kindle in others.

ADHD-Side

As a kid, my parents called me Forgetful Jones. I have always struggled with punctuality and organization. Scientifically, this is due to a lack of dopamine, which facilitates many important functions in addition to the ability to sit still when bored. (Sooo many! Ask me about it or read up!) In the past few years I became aware that I have this neurological setup that western society is currently calling ADHD. Trying to live in industrial time with this wiring is pretty brutal, but I’m studying up on how to do that. I learned that one way to survive it and thrive is by finding work that you truly love.

Catalysts.

1

A parent in Washington State had a very serious health event and my family decided we would move back to the Seattle area to be able to give more support. We knew that we wanted to buy a home and finally found a fixer-upper we could afford that happened to be sited in a wooded area on an acre of land.

2

Like I said, I am planty, so I immediately got to planting. Back in New York I had accidentally begun raising eastern black swallowtails (swoon 😍) because dill, the one herb I was was least into growing, LOVED where it was planted and my haphazard care.

So the one thing I wanted to do most when I arrived was attract butterflies to our property. I researched what species I wanted to raise before we had even chosen our house. Once we arrived, I started hunting for plants that would bring me butterfly babies. Then I saw a hummingbird in our backyard and went berserk trying to plant things that would make it stay.

At the beautiful glorious enchanting nursery that I wanted to move into, I saw a huge potted arrangement with a very large price tag. I thought… hmm… maybe I can make those and sell them here too. But the math wasn’t mathing. That arrangement looked like it had been there a while and there was only one.

3

I didn’t have a garden layout or much time, so I bought a couple large pots for my new plants. And just like that, the pollinator platter was born. One night, tons of ideas for named arrangements just started bombarding me, so I wrote them down.

Pollinator Platter
Berry Bowl
Winter Wonderful
Grief Garden…
pages and pages emerged.

Instead of gifting or buying cut, dying flowers, I could provide an option for people to give and live as generously as plants do. I wanted to create personalized, long-living arrangements to bring joy, enhance the environment, and support physical and mental health.

Aside: Despite everything you have already heard and probably will hear more of from me, I need to make it clear that I love cut flowers and florists. It is an amazing art and by all means, send me flowers. Sometimes they truly are the most appropriate gift and decor. I love all my planty people and there is plenty of room and need for all of us. 🌹

4

Once I started talking about my idea that I would love to do one day, my big little sister and my tiny best friend pretty encouraged me to take steps in that direction right away. I had planned to wait until we finished renovating our house, but once I took the first steps, I couldn’t slow down. Pretty soon I was spending money on plants and licenses and had to start actually selling products so I wouldn’t just be draining my family’s accounts.

Bringing it all together.

I.

One of the times in our life when we need beauty the most is in times of grief. There is nothing that can erase the pain of losing a loved one, but it is everything to know that someone feels for you. One thing I care deeply about is bringing comfort to people who are suffering.

Poetry is a powerful way to distill, express and share emotion. A picture is worth a thousand words, and a plant is worth a thousand pictures. Each plant has cultural, historical and personal symbolism as well as a unique personality. When they are arranged and presented in a thoughtful way, they can express feelings that a person may never be able to with words alone.

II.

One of my first steps was to get on social media and start connecting with people that might have an interest in what I do. Terramation (a process that turns the body into a nutrient rich soil ammendment) was an obvious fit to me, and there was a conference coming up called Terracon. The price tag was too high for my brand new business.

One day I commented on a post by my now friend at Pollen.care, then decided to ask her if she would let people in the death care industry know about mw. She did me one waaaay better. She brought me to Terracon.

I edit this post, rushed and excited as I prep for day two. I am creating a mock terramation vessel arrangement as an example. Fallen foliage and cut flowers are very appropriate to me in this case since they will be added to the soil. One of my favorite neighboring nurseries, Calendula Farms, grows and preserves flowers and grasses naturally. My flowers are pulled from their stunning selection.

To me, helping people turn their dead loved ones into living gardens is one of the most generous, poetic, creative, and meaningful acts I can imagine. It makes all of me happy in the deepest sense even in the face of profound grief.

III.

After more than forty years of life and learning, I have finally discovered what I want to be when I grow up. I want to work with plants to write poetry and care for others. I hope that someone reading this decides to find their soul plant(s) and/or and their soul work.

Don’t forget to like, follow, share and subscribe! ✌🏽

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I am Rose, I was raised on rainforest lands and I have rainforest blood running through my veins.

I stumbled into my industry when I was chasing butterflies and hummingbirds.

I create living botanical arrangements with a purpose. Some provide food and microhabitats for various species, some commemorate special occasions, some memorialize those we have lost.

I take my inspiration from nature and my creations literally come with a life of their own. Many are able to continue to arrange and propagate themselves indefinitely.

I am honored to create projects for any budget and for people with significantly more or significantly less plant knowledge than myself.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

I had to unlearn, and am still unlearning a lesson I helped write for myself. The lesson was, “You are not disciplined or organized enough to run a business.”

As we speak, I still agree with that statement about myself to a degree. I have some limitations and traits that make it an unwise endeavor to pursue without some form of assistance. But isn’t that true for every person and endeavor? I don’t have to let areas of difficuly prevent me from pursuing what I love doing. Every person that is successful by any definition is proof of this.

When I was in architecture I had a lot of people say to me things like, “I love architecture, but I could never do what you you do because I can’t even draw a straight line” or “Oh I couldn’t do that, I’m terrible at math.”

But I draw my straight lines with a ruler and do my math on a calculator.

If we are blessed with people in our life who support us, if we have access to helpful tools, or if we can figure out how to acknowledge and adjust to our limitations, we can do so much more than we thought. It’s persistence, resilience, practice and study that makes success, not a specific skill set or personality type.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

Shop for goods and services differently. When you have a need, instead of saying, “How can I get this the cheapest and the fastest?” or “What brand is the best?” ask questions like this:

“What is the cost to the the workers who made it possible for me to buy this?”
“What is the environmental cost?”
“What am I actually after?”
“Who in my community can provide something like this or better?”

Openly admire the work of creatives, even if you aren’t going to buy it yourself. Sharing on social media, word of mouth and just a “Wow.” can do so much in terms of helping a creative find their audience and stay motivated.

And a lesson from my friend at Pollen: Open a door to the spaces you are in to people without access. Everyone will win.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://tinyplot.farm
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• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tinyplotfarm
• Other: Linktr.ee/tinyplotfarm
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Image Credits

Tiny Plot