“You must do something to make the world more beautiful,” and so begins a grandfather’s request to his granddaughter in the award-winning children’s story The Lupine Lady.
Melanie Harrington of Dahlia May Flower Farm sat on her father’s knee as he told her this true story of a young girl setting out into the world, scattering flower seeds and sharing beauty everywhere she went. It was a lesson deeply etched, and for that we are thankful. With this fuel of childhood dreams and a deep commitment to family roots, art and horticulture, her Quinte West homestead springs up like a beautiful oasis.
Nestled in the rolling Murray Hills, Dahlia May Flower Farm specializes in growing romantic and fragrant varieties of cut flowers, often heirloom. Their fields are filled with heady blooms, petals of every shape and colour waving to you from the roadside. It’s a swath of gleeful colour, flower heads bobbing and dancing in the summer breeze. It’s pure joy to visit and choose from the plants and cut flower bouquets found within the picture-book-perfect board-and-batten farmstand.
The importance of having and creating beauty in spite of tough circumstances is a legacy Melanie Harrington shares with us at her family farm. She’s a self-professed maker of many mistakes, eager learner, goal setter, and believer in the simple magic reflected in every-day beauty.
Her father’s stories and those seeds of ideas have grown and blossomed and continue to be cast out into the world. What a beautiful legacy to share, what a treasure we have growing in our very own backyard.
Melanie Harrington is a shining star in rural entrepreneurialism. She has over 64,000 followers on Instagram that she used as her platform to shares intimate and personal stories of not only the good times but also those brutally soul crushing moments that come with being a human being.
For more information on Dahlia May Flower Farm visit here.
To attend the 1st Canadian Rural Innovation Summit in Belleville in November 2018 visit here.
