This past week I signed a lease and moved Foliage Botanics into a new space off the farm. It came as a bit of a surprise even to me, but it’s also a decision that’s been slowly building over time as I’ve struggled, seemingly endlessly, to find a home for this business that truly worked to meet all of my and its needs. This past fall, having had to move, once again, all that makes up Foliage Botanics, every last bottle and jar and beeswax crumble, out of my unheated and unelectrified cabin, into our basement for the colder months and thus experiencing the sudden limitations of this, it became clear that I needed to make a change.
It’s a very exciting move for us while also quite nerve-wracking as I find myself in that zone many small business owners likely know of not really making enough to afford it, but needing this kind of space to do what I do and grow. Does it check every box? No, and I am still dreaming of building a classroom and workspace on the land that does fulfill all my needs and keeps me closer to our trails through the trees, my beloved creek, and, most importantly, the herb garden, but this new space is huge and bright, with beautiful floors and great windows (also right next door to the post office?!) and I am able to open it up to the public, to you, in a way I’ve never been able to before, which is really the dream come true. As I wrote on instagram earlier this week, it was definitely a “lead with the heart close my eyes and leap” kind of decision, but after a few days of getting set up and knuckling down into productivity, I already feel the nervous edges softening. I already know the decision was right.
I’m working on re-stocking the apothecary and once set up and organized I will be opening up this space for some regular open hours for you to join me here, peruse our tinctures, read from our herbal library, ask questions and drink tea with me, but that won’t yet be for a little bit. For now we’ve got a couple fun things coming down the line this month here at fb that I want to share quickly, and then I thought it would be interesting to share a little more about the saga of Foliage Botanics with you, of finding space, physically and a little more metaphysically, over the years. So, read on below for that, if you wish.
The second session of the Winter Botany Intensive is in 2 weeks on February 18th, followed by an online Tree Medicine class on the 25th. All the details are on our class page. I hope to see you there! The first session of the intensive was really wonderful, absolutely frigid but a beautiful day and I’m looking forward to continue diving in deeply with everyone this and next month. My friend Sara Wallach took some incredible photos of us that day too, sharing one below.
Ok so, the full saga. Last week I got a little reminder that it’s been exactly 8 years of Foliage Botanics and I had such a visceral memory of the moment when I announced it to the world. I was living in Asheville at the time, having just returned to my college town from Maine, working full time as a baker in a cake shop. I don’t think at the time I was envisioning foliage as a business per se, but rather as a vehicle for doing what I love and sharing it with the world and honestly that’s still how I view it.
I was doing a lot of First Aid and free clinic work back then,
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