Hello there, I’m Mia, the florist + gardener behind the blooms at Fleur & Gather
Flowers have always been a part of my story.
I grew up alongside a family greenhouse business, where caring for flowers and gardens was my very first work. Our home was surrounded by forest and meadows, and foraging for the first woodland wildflowers is one of my earliest memories.
While my path through life has been a meandering one, the joy of growing, gathering, and arranging flowers is something that I’ve carried with me. I have a background in conservation ecology and anthropology, with graduate work in sustainable development initiatives based on foraged wild flora. My life and work have taken me all over the world, with long stretches in California, the Pacific Northwest, the UK, the far North, and South America.
A Flower-filled Life
I had daydreams of a flower-filled life for years before our wee family came to live on a couple of seaside acres in Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia. Not long after, in the midst of a series of unexpected family losses, “someday” suddenly seemed too far. As I began turning much of the space around us into flower gardens, a part of my path began circling back. Stepping back into flowers felt like coming home.
Outside of the gardening season, I work as a consultant and as a mama to a little flower girl. Raising a child in a garden holds an echo of my own story, and I love watching her awareness of flora and fauna, cycles and seasons, unfold.
Fleur & Gather
Fleur & Gather began as a garden-based floral design studio in 2021. “Fleur” is a tip of my sunhat to my late, French-speaking Dad, whose flower business I was raised alongside. The tiny miracle of a seed, and the wonder of a verdant greenhouse in the midst of a snowy Canadian spring, hung a star in my heart at an early age.
‘Gather’ speaks to many things — from the quiet hours spent harvesting flowers to the process of gathering together elements of texture, scent, movement and wildness. Flowers are also present whenever we gather to commemorate our love, mark our milestones, and mourn our losses. They have the power to wordlessly express our pride, sorrow, empathy, and joy at times when there are no words. A metaphor for the ephemeral beauty of our most sacred and storied times.
