The sweet smells of pine boughs mingle with the happy murmur of conversation inside the small shop.
A dozen people sat at the long wooden table inside Queen Anne’s Farmhouse and Flower Shoppe. They concentrated on the project before them: turning evergreen into festive natural wreaths.
Each of the participants had come together for a hands-on, do-it-yourself class making a craft for the holiday season. But store owner Mel Smith hopes they’d find something else among the live botanicals and charming farmhouse decor of the store.
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“Life is precious and short. To just sit back and comply, to be in the box and button-click, I’m just not OK with that,” she said.
Smith has embarked on a mission to use faith, creativity and a connectedness to nature to improve people’s health. The longtime nurse started Queen Anne’s Farmhouse and Flower Shoppe to fill a void that she sees missing in our modern society.
Through flower arranging, working with wood and plants and just plain old digging in the dirt, Smith believes that people can become more physically, mentally and spiritually healthy.
“I think there is some benefit of getting people outside and getting some sunshine, some therapeutic benefit by getting off digital devices and getting back old-school, to tactile, sensory uses and not swipes,” she said. “I think our brains are yearning for that.”
The importance of nature’s role in Smith’s life is evident everywhere throughout Queen Anne’s Farmhouse and Flower Shoppe. Quaint rustic home decor is made with upcycled wood. Fresh flowers are stored in massive coolers at one end of the store. Lotions, soaps, candles and other gifts have been crafted using ingredients the come from all over central Indiana.
Smith doesn’t just admire the rustic and the natural — she lives it. She and her husband, Todd, farm in the Rocklane area. Todd Smith’s family has roots in dairy farming in the area, though they no longer focus on that and instead farm corn, soybeans and other grains.
Recently, though, Mel and Todd Smith have introduced some beef cattle, hogs and chickens back into the operation. In addition, they have three therapeutic riding horses, further evidence to the value they find in connecting to animals and nature.
Their experience in agriculture has given them a firsthand look at the ways that people can be removed from nature.
“It’s so sad that we’re taking away farmland to build interstates out in our area. At some point, we need to look at the bigger picture and what that does to our food supply and our agriculture,” she said. “You start replacing soil with cement, that becomes a scary concept.”
Smith has always been drawn towards the natural world. She found solace in gardening as a young child, and was a member of 4-H growing up.
As a student, she attended Purdue University with the hopes of being a biologist. But months before she was set to graduate with a degree, she started having doubts if she really wanted to pursue a career in the field.
Instead, she completed her biology degree in addition to working towards a nursing degree. She had spent 14 years in the nursing field, half of them as a primary care nurse practitioner.
Over the time, she saw how the way people are cared for has morphed.
“Health care has changed. We have become accustomed to technology and button-clicks, using technology for its simplicity, but not necessarily for the benefits of our patients all the time,” she said.
In the past few years, Smith had reached a point where she wasn’t sure she wanted to be part of that system anymore.
“You have your day when you look in the mirror and you see more gray hairs than you did the day before, and you think, ‘What is my contribution? What am I doing?’’’ she said. “I recognized I needed a change, and a mental health break from that: When you’re on call all night and sleeping all day and missing family events. I wasn’t practicing what I was preaching, and at some point, there needs to be a balance.”
Thinking about the changes she wanted to make in her life, Smith kept coming back to the outdoors. Her grandmother, who she was very close to, had always included her in planting and gardening, as well as using natural materials in crafting.
Those things had always been a kind of therapy for her. That sparked an idea.
“What if we created a place where people come not for health care, but for where they can just be loved on, where they can figure out where they’re at in life, be OK with that and move forward,” she said.
Smith started doing research into holistic approaches to physical, mental and spiritual health used all over the world. She was intrigued by the concept of agra-therapy or farm therapy — a system which uses farm work and that rigorous, hands-on way of raising animals and plants to help people suffering from mental health issues.
Agra-therapy has been successful with helping veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and other issues to transition from military life to being a civilian.
Smith also found information from Japan about the tradition of “forest bathing,” or simply immersing yourself in nature by spending a purposeful walk in the forest. Research has shown it can boost the immune system, reduce blood pressure and stress, and accelerate recovery from surgery.
According to a study conducted by the Department of Hygiene and Public Health at Nippon Medical School in Tokyo, people living in areas with lower forest coverage had significantly higher mortality ratios of cancers compared with the people living in areas with higher forest coverage.
People living in less-forested areas saw higher mortality rates of lung, breast, and uterine cancers in females, and prostate, kidney, and colon cancers in males. The correlations were seen even after the effects of smoking and socioeconomic status were factored in.
For Smith, that positive benefit from such connections with nature seemed appealing as a way to supplement the advances in modern medicine.
“Having been part of the system, it’s not to alienate colleagues or discredit the benefit of that,” she said. “Everyone still needs a primary care provider. You still need to go to the doctors. It’s not to take away from it, but it’s to add a big piece that I think is missing.”
With those concepts in mind, and after much prayer, Smith decided to open her own small business implementing these concepts. Queen Anne’s Farmhouse and Flower Shoppe not only provides natural gifts, but opportunities to help people discover the benefits of nature.
Classes are offered in flower arranging, centerpieces and other plant-based decor. Painting and other creative experiences are also provided. Smith focuses on giving each participant leeway to approach the project as they want, with only basic guidance if people want it.
“I want to teach the art of it, but I want it to be yours. Just because I like something doesn’t mean the rest of the world has to like it,” she said. “I want it to be what’s unique from you.”
Field trips focused on agriculture, science and humanity are part of her offerings, and leadership workshops in the outdoors are planned as well.
She plans to provide canning and gardening supplies later this year too.
At the center of everything she does is kindness, the foundation of what Queen Anne’s is.
“I want everyone to feel like they’re welcomed here. They have a piece of this. It’s about building a community. We have a great community, but you can always be better and stronger,” Smith said. “We need each other.”
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Queen Anne’s Farmhouse and Flower Shoppe
What: A gift shop and business using flower arrangement and creativity to improve physical, mental and spiritual health in people.
Where: 200 Byrd Way, Suite 205, Greenwood
Owner: Mel Smith, a Rocklane-area resident
Offerings
- Custom-made gifts
- Local artists and artisians work
- Candles, essential oils and other locally made products
- Natural manure
- Fresh flower arrangements
- Make-your-own-flower bar
- Rotating Classes of various subjects and projects, no experience needed
- Special events, private events, field trips, leadership summits
Information: https://queenannesfarmhouse.com/
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