This year, something in me shifted. I started reading more—really reading—about the quiet crisis unfolding all around us. The kind that doesn’t make the headlines. The kind that creeps in slowly, quietly, until one day you look around and realize something is missing. The songs of birds aren't as loud. The flutter of wings is rarer. The world is quieter than it used to be.
I stumbled across article after article about the collapse of insect populations. I learned about the devastation caused by pesticides, by habitat destruction, by the way we’ve reshaped the land to serve only ourselves. And I cried.
Not just once. Not just a single tear. I cried the way you do when your heart cracks open. I cried for the loss, for the silence, for the fragile little lives disappearing without even a mention. Creatures that pollinate our food, nourish our ecosystems, and hold the web of life together with threads we’ve never even stopped to notice.
There was grief. But also guilt. How had I not known? How had I lived this long without seeing it?
As a child, I thought wheat fields were the picture of natural beauty. Golden, glowing, endless. They looked so wholesome. So peaceful. But now, I see them differently. They’re not meadows—they’re monocultures. Wide, empty stretches of land, sprayed and sterilized, where life used to thrive. I’ve learned that the bread we eat so casually often comes from fields where the soil is tired, the insects are gone, and nothing is allowed to grow unless it serves a very narrow purpose.
It broke my heart to see that beauty was not always what it seemed.
But that heartbreak also lit a spark.
I couldn’t just sit with this new awareness and do nothing. I needed to find a way to honor what had been lost—and protect what’s still here.
So I started to plant.
I’ve always loved being outside. There’s something sacred about dirt under your nails, the sun on your back, the hum of life all around you. But now that love has deepened. It’s no longer just about how nature makes me feel—it’s about how I can give something back.
Starting a flower farm wasn’t a business decision. It was an act of hope. A way to turn grief into action. My little patch of land in Port Perry might be small, but it’s mine to care for. Mine to reimagine.
I named it Forest Hill Flowers. And every seed I tuck into the soil is a quiet promise—to the bees, the butterflies, the birds, and the balance we’ve disrupted.
I’m growing native wildflowers, not just for beauty but for purpose. I’m watching as pollinators return, as life moves in again. It’s slow. It’s imperfect. But it’s happening.
Even now, when I pass by a well-kept lawn or a freshly sprayed field, I feel a pang. What used to seem tidy or productive now feels... empty. Lifeless. It’s strange how your eyes change once your heart does.
We don’t need more chemicals. We don’t need more perfect grass or massive fields of one single crop. We need wild edges. We need tangled gardens. We need people growing with love and intention—in backyards, on balconies, in forgotten corners and fields. Every little pocket of wild matters.
My flower farm is small. But it’s part of something much bigger than me. A quiet resistance. A love letter to the natural world. A call back to something we’ve nearly forgotten: that we are part of this earth, not above it. That beauty is not just what pleases the eye—but what sustains life.
This isn’t just gardening. It’s remembering. Rebuilding. Reconnecting.
And it begins with a seed.