Last weekend, I had the honor of spending the early morning hours of a late August Saturday among rows of flowers with Natalie Morgan of @shellygirlfarms. The sky was a soft grey-blue, tinged with silver as the sun rose in the east, while birds chirped and crickets hummed. We worked quickly, moving between rows of marigolds, zinnias, and tall grasses. It didn’t take long for the sun to rise, and the heat along with it. With each direction and pose, I aimed to capture the quiet stillness. Listening back to the behind-the-scenes videos, you can actually hear the silence.
That stillness is something Natalie notices, too. “I love spending time on the farm and just tapping into the natural rhythm of things,” she told me when I’d sent her a list of questions before our shoot. “Observing and feeling the seasons changing, the critters you see in each stage… Feeling abundance in peak season but knowing it is only fleeting, loving and letting go.”
Natalie’s story begins long before this plot. She grew up in Pittsburgh, surrounded by her mother’s lush gardens. “My childhood photos look like I’m in a jungle,” she wrote. After college, she spent a few months on an organic farm in Hawaii with a farmer devoted to permaculture. Later, she taught children how to grow vegetables in school gardens. But it was during the pandemic that flowers took hold. She poured her energy into her home garden and discovered a passion for cut flowers. By 2023, she expanded into a quarter-acre plot at Hilltop Urban Farm.
When I asked about her creative process, Natalie paused. “No one’s ever asked me that before,” she admitted. “I don’t feel like I have a very specific answer. I’m very ‘with the wind,’ so to speak. I’ve tried every craft in the book and don’t mind trying and failing. Lately I’ve been into bead embroidery, but only when it feels right. Farming has a little more pressure, it’s a business, and at the very least I need to cover costs. Luckily flowers are so colorful and playful that it’s hard not to have fun and get creative with them!”
As we worked, she offered to bring out her mower and tools, the very heart of her labor. Flowers, she reminded me, are not only beautiful, but universally loved. “They’re a good gift for any occasion,” she said. “You can always learn about new types, keep trying new things.”
Her relationship with the community has shifted over time. At first she sold at farmers markets every weekend, enjoying the conversations but drained by the pace. Now, she sells wholesale to florists who use her blooms for weddings and events. More recently, she’s started arranging herself, stepping into floristry with her own events. “It’s been fun,” she wrote.
And the future? “It’s still very much evolving and I’m not sure yet,” she said. “I have many ideas. I’d love to do more events, maybe one day have a storefront, or a flower truck. I don’t know yet!”
Walking home that morning, I carried my bags and a large basket overflowing with fragrant orange marigolds. The streets of my neighborhood were blocked off for the annual Run Around the Square. Beside me, a woman in a banana suit carried an end-of-race sign. Onlookers smiled as if I, too, were part of the race. It felt oddly coordinated, as though planned.
I chatted with neighbors, then set the flowers in water, content to know they wouldn’t last long. Natalie had reminded me of that truth, flowers thrive when the conditions are right, but their beauty is fleeting. They teach us to stay present, to savor, and then to let go.
