MEET TODAY’S GUEST
Shellie Ritzman of My Garden Blooms
Walk through Shellie Ritzman’s gate and you enter a place where the ordinary bends a little. A shed glows white for photographs, a Victorian greenhouse becomes a winter dining hall, and pansies find their way onto cakes and teacups. Her farm is full of these gentle transformations—practical, playful, sometimes accidental—each one carrying the unmistakable mark of her imagination and care.
Hey there!
You’re reading the Argentabraid Journal — a homegrown journal for those reimagining work and life at the roots. Each issue shares stories from artisans, growers, and quiet builders shaping a parallel economy - where meaning matters more than metrics, and freedom is found in shared knowledge, mutual support, and creative sovereignty.
This is the thread between us.
Roots
The House Where Possibility Lived
At 59, weary of commutes and fluorescent lights, Shellie Ritzman turned to soil and sky. Out of that turning grew My Garden Blooms—a way of living that brought her childhood influences, her husband’s steady hands, and a streak of fearless creativity into one place. This article is also a friendship story—about the way Shellie and I recognized each other in the middle of a conversation and kept going.
“I was tired of sitting at a desk… I needed something where I could use my creative outlet.”
I asked where this all began, expecting a tidy timeline. Instead, Shellie walked me back into her childhood home. Her father was a commercial artist—the kind who built images and words from scratch. Her mother chased whatever was current, following trends through magazines like Better Homes & Gardens and, later, Victoria. Shellie laughed softly describing those old issues: tea rooms, gardens, little sanctuaries on glossy pages. When life got noisy, she would escape there.
The book that tipped her from daydream to action arrived decades later, in a bookstore aisle: Erin Benzakein’s Cut Flower Garden. “I’ve got a backyard,” she thought. “I can start this.”
Instagram became her classroom. A six-week course gave structure. The longing that had waited through 35 years of corporate admin work finally had a direction and a place to land.
Building: Beds, Soil, Light
Shellie does not tiptoe. That first autumn she put in 50 raised metal beds—18 inches tall, as beautiful as they were practical. “If I was doing it in my backyard, it had to look good,” she told me. A year later she and her husband bought the half-acre next door and added 150 more. They are in their 60s. He hand-shoveled the bio-soil for every bed, and can tell you exactly how many shovelfuls fit a 3×3 or a 2×6. The beds are laid out like music measures—repeating patterns, small surprises.
The outbuildings kept pace. A plain shed turned into a bright studio for photographing flowers—white walls, added windows, a shelf built to catch natural light. A workshop went up for classes. She fell hard for a Victorian glass greenhouse, then learned what the Southern sun does to glass: summer temperatures soaring toward 120°F. Inside, growing was a nonstarter. So she reclaimed the greenhouse as a winter dining room—a long table, soft light, the feeling of old tea rooms she’d carried in memory since the 1990s.
“I pressed the accelerator down. My husband asked, ‘Are you sure you want to go this fast?’ I said yes—I had to catch up to my vision.”
People arrive and their shoulders drop. That’s Shellie’s favorite measure of success.
I’ve got a backyard. I can start this.
Learning: What This Land Requires
I used to live in Seattle, where spring light is diffused and forgiving and flowers seem to pose for you. Shellie shared her own experience - explaining to me the Carolina way. Here, snapdragons go in the ground in October, spend winter building roots under row cover, and leap when the soil finally hits 60°F. Tulips demand 2,000 chill hours—no chance locally—so she orders bulbs pre-chilled for twelve weeks. One season tulip fire took out 70% of her crop. Another year, rain and heat erased dahlias and lisianthus.
She stayed chemical-free anyway. “If kids are coming for homeschool tours, if a baker is pressing petals onto a cake, if someone’s dropping confetti of marigold and cornflower into tea—you can’t cut corners.”
I pressed the accelerator down… I had to catch up with my vision.
TODAY’S CONVERSATION
With a Kindred Spirit in Bloom
My time with Shellie today was like meeting an old friend I hadn’t seen in years — or perhaps a mentor from another lifetime. Conversation came easily, carried by our shared loves: flowers, tea, art, English tea houses, and the small things that inspire a life. We shared so many loves, that our worlds seemed to braid together naturally.
I found myself not simply impressed by her vision for My Garden Blooms, but deeply at home in it. Her way of weaving flowers into daily life, into classes, collaborations, and connections that stretch far beyond her backyard, mirrors the heart of what I hope for with Argentabraid.
Talking with her was a delight, the kind of exchange that feels as if it belongs not to a single afternoon, but to a thread that has always existed — stretching across times and places, waiting for us to catch it together. At moments, the sense of it was almost like stepping into a scene from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, where Mr. Tumnus welcomes Lucy into his snug home for stories, tea, toast, and cake.
Workdays: Hours, Heat, and the Quiet Joy of Morning
A typical day? It depends on temperature. In spring, she’s out for five to six hours, unhurried. In summer, she starts around 6 a.m. and breaks when the heat climbs, returning in the evening for the last tasks—watering, notes, a final walk of the beds. Winter looks calm from the outside, but it’s covers-on at 25°F, off again near 55°F, and constant planning: seed calendars, event logistics, bookkeeping. The “office skills” didn’t vanish; they finally have purpose.
Turning Flowers into Encounters: Subscriptions, Without the Hard Sell
Shellie knew herself well enough to design a sales model she could live with: prepaid bouquet subscriptions. Customers pick up from partner shops around town; each shop receives a thank-you arrangement. “I learned fast: I don’t want to deliver,” she said, recalling a third-floor walk-up with no elevator. This way, the flowers become part of daily life—on counters, in coffee shops, at bakeries—without Shellie chasing transactions.
… if a baker is pressing petals onto a cake… you can’t cut corners.
Pansies on a Plate
The surprise hit was edible flowers. She planted several three-foot beds of pansies—tiny, quarter-sized faces—and packed them into food-grade containers (no chemicals on the property, ever). These beds of violas can earn up to $500. Bakers tucked them onto cakes, a tea room set them on tiered trays, restaurants and bartenders used them on drinks. Once she saw how many flowers are edible—cornflower, marigold, roses—the idea kept widening.
And the surplus didn’t end there. Shellie began drying blossoms for tea blends with her collaborator Kiley, selling marigolds, roses, and cornflower for herbal infusions. She pressed flowers between pages, later turning them into art projects that guests could try in workshops. She scattered petals and powders onto silk scarves for eco-dyeing, steaming them into vivid color. She experimented with cyanotype, setting flowers and ferns on treated watercolor paper, pinning them under plexiglass, and letting the UV rays of the sun burn an image into blue permanence.
When you have leftover flowers, you’re going to do something… you just are going to want to
Workshops That Feel Like Neighbor Nights
Shellie likes company. Early on she hosted two events a month; after a brutal season of losses she chose sanity and pared back to one. The gatherings feel like intimate garden parties: Flower Bars where guests build arrangements; eco‑dyeing silk scarves with petals and natural pigments (her husband runs the steamer while everyone else enjoys refreshments); and cyanotype sun‑prints.
The best part is the faces when the scarf unrolls, or when the print clears in water and turns a deep, improbable blue. People take home a piece of the farm—whether fresh, dried, pressed, or foraged.
Friendship: The Real Infrastructure
The word “partnerships” felt wrong as we talked. These are friendships.
Ellen, her mentor and dear friend, brings lavender wreath‑making, culinary lavender classes, and (soon) garlic braiding threaded with dried blooms. People go a little wild for lavender, and Shellie is delighted to be their enabler.
Kiley Duncan, a fellow tea lover turned kindred spirit—was one of the first farm event collaborators. Tea and Toast, which has grown into a hugely successful venture, has been a top favorite of guests who crave all things tea—tea cocktails, tinctures, and blends flecked with Shellie’s dried marigolds, roses, and cornflower.
“We just expect to see her in Starbucks someday,” Shellie joked, then immediately corrected herself: “Actually, she might be too good for them.”
There’s the candle‑maker, the charcuterie artist, the Australian flower‑crown teacher who flew across the world for her first trip to America and chose small‑town North Carolina as a destination, staying four or five days and teaching class in Shellie’s garden. “Her favorite part was seeing small‑town America,” Shellie said.
And there’s the circle of growers who quietly prop one another up. They keep a shared spreadsheet for plug orders (trays of 210 are easier to divide than to plant alone). When someone has too many sunflowers, another has a gap. When a customer calls with a request one can’t fill, the order boomerangs to a fellow grower.
There’s also a coffee shop called A Special Blend, where adults with special needs work the counter and care for the little vases Shellie drops off. Various employees are “assigned” as vase guardians and now peek into the break room to see if she’s finished refilling them. The story makes both of us grin.
Instagram: Not a Billboard, a Back Fence
Shellie got on Instagram with modest expectations and found a back‑fence conversation. Growers from all over the country—and the world—shared their methods and successes. No one hoarded knowledge. People even shared pricing. The openness reminded her of homesteaders and old farm wisdom passed neighbor to neighbor. After two years of talking online with a flower‑crown maker in Australia, she welcomed her to North Carolina. That’s not “networking.” That’s hospitality.
Kids, Questions, and the Zinnia Wiggle Test
Shellie is a teacher even when she doesn’t mean to be. When a homeschool group of eight twelve‑year‑old girls came for a summer tour, she made a simple worksheet and then led them through the beds. She introduced the zinnia wiggle test—finger near the bloom, a quick gentle shake. If it wobbles, don’t cut yet; if it holds, it’s ready. The test made it onto the worksheet, but more importantly, into memory. Some of those girls will remember that moment years from now, the same way I remember dipping a popsicle stick into hot maple syrup and plunging it into snow on a preschool trip in New Hampshire. Sensation becomes story.
Hard Seasons, Softer Pace
Not every year is generous. One summer stacked rain on heat until even the toughest plants tapped out; this year, she lost all her dahlias and more lisianthus than she can comfortably recount. She responded by dialing back subscriptions and cutting events from two per month to one. Prepping the property for guests takes hours of mowing, tidying, and fussing the details no one sees until they do. Shellie’s goal is joy, not burnout. The slower rhythm suits her.
And still, strangers call from far away. Someone in Virginia drives in for multiple events each year. A woman from Montana orders a bouquet for her mother. Deliveries are rare, but when the story is tender, Shellie makes the exception. A week after one such delivery, the recipient called: the most beautiful flowers she’d ever seen. She ordered again for a home memorial.
Chef Dreams Under Twinkle Lights
There’s one dream Shellie hasn’t cracked yet. She has the spaces—outdoor room, long bar‑top tables, winter greenhouse dining—and she can see the scene clearly: local chefs preparing thoughtful meals while guests sit inside the gardens, plates and petals echoing each other. She’s tried introducing edible flowers to restaurants, but chefs are busy and often push her toward the bar for cocktail garnishes. “They intimidate me,” she admits, laughing. She only needs one to say yes. Then, she suspects, the rest will follow.
Looking Forward
The garden is already what she hoped: a place where time loosens its grip, and people breathe as if for the first time in days.. Next up, she’d like to host small retreats (there’s an eight‑person wellness weekend on the calendar inspired by Becca Stevens’s The Way of Tea and Justice), and someday those chef dinners, where flowers aren’t just on the table but in the food and the air.
Shellie laughs easily. She plans seriously. She grows pansies for plates and peonies for sighs and shares what she knows without fuss. The backyard dream keeps illuminating a living tapestry through repeated kindnesses: a shared plug order, a refilled vase, a scarf unrolled to reveal colors no one expected, a stranger’s shoulders finally at rest.
Flowers make people happy. They just do.
Help us keep sharing real stories
Do you know someone growing something beautiful, building something bold, or living in quiet alignment with their values? We’re always looking for voices to feature — makers, growers, dreamers, and doers who are part of the parallel economy and the heart of what we stand for.
Reach out to Alary Woods at:
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