Hi, my name is Melissa Lallo Johnson. Born and raised in Youngstown, Ohio, I grew up gardening with my mother, father and grandparents. I knew I had a deep appreciation for the simple beauty of flowers and trees from a young age, but as I grew older, I had never owned a home where I could have my own gardens.  That all changed when we purchased our first home in December of 2011,  I was 8 months pregnant with my first child. Property and plant maintenance naive, (my husband used to tell me I had the “black thumb of death”) we were so excited to see what was on the property that following spring. We were big time disappointed. The one-acre of lawn was a total disaster. Full of weeds and spots of nothing but bare dirt. There was a lot of great land in the back (an additional 7.4 acres), but it had to be cleared from thick, dense brush and hundreds of understory trees. For years, my husband was the only one to see the creek at the very back property line. Everything seemed overwhelming and super expensive to remedy – the lawn, the landscaping, or lack thereof, and everything else in between. Over the course of the next two seasons, I rarely got outside to do any work. At that point, I had two babies and dedicated every second to them, my husband and my marketing work. In 2013, our family was blindsided and absolutely devastated by the sudden and tragic loss of my mother and father in a fatal airplane accident as they were leaving Kansas City to head back to Youngstown. In that split second, my life changed forever – and not in a good way. The loss of a parent, or in my situation both parents, is a very profound moment in life. It puts a permanent cloud over you that doesn’t ever seem to go away. Many, many, very, verrrrry sad days after that lead me to really search my soul and I asked myself a lot of really hard questions. I had a whole new take on life and my remaining time here. I had to find some sort of happiness to fill the massive void that was left in my heart and life that no one here on earth could fill. I had no idea where to start. I had never really been standout good at anything. I was a jack of trades, master of none. I knew a little about a lot.  I was always average at everything (except Math…I was realllllly bad at Math) but I knew that God had potentially given me talents in areas that maybe I had not fully explored. I prayed that my parents and grandparents/great aunts would watch over me and give me the guidance to find the path to my true passion. I promised them I would be patient and listen – two things they always said I did not do very well. Little by little that path was realized. I believe it was all of my angels leading my direction through my intuition with their guidance and support or just flat out hearing my beautiful mother saying in a very serious manner from above, “Buy that hydrangea. That’s a good price, just buy them all” or “dig over there in that spot, there is a pile of gorgeous rock waiting for you there!!” I randomly learned about things like the Master Gardener program and how to source plugs and plants so I can buy in bulk easily from top notch growers..my book library grew with the must have books that I’ve found along my journey…I continued to bring more and more houseplants into the house and now I have so many that are absolutely stunning and thriving…… and that brings me to today. After years of incredible amounts of work and determination, never wavering, never giving up, learning to move past our mistakes and embrace the unknown, our property has been fully transformed and is still changing every day (of course I still have a list of 7,000 things that I need/want to accomplish) but I can say that I have truly, undoubtedly found my absolute passion in flowers, plants, trees and essentially restoring and enhancing landscape to it’s best potential – spending the least amount of money doing it. I’m also pretty good on a Bobcat track loader. 😉 This property is my temple, my therapy, my exercise, my art – it has allowed me to find some happiness – in life’s simplest miracles and treasures. When I sit back at the end of a long day admiring my work, it’s bittersweet (as is everything now), I smile (and cry a little inside) knowing my parents and others from above helped me create this masterpiece. They are and always will be my biggest cheerleaders. I still have a lot to accomplish, a lot of big dreams to build for this little slice of heaven on earth. I’ve never been so eager to learn about anything. I’ve never tried so hard to complete tasks. I’ve never put more thought, sweat, tears, blood or sore muscles into anything before. I hope that you enjoy this blog. I hope this serves as a mutually beneficial place where we can get totally, unabashedly “flower nerd” and relish in the glory of nature’s present perfection. I invite you to join me as I explore my newfound passion – one flower at a time!