Fairy Meadow Flower’s Isabelle Barron Gives What They Want the Most

Isabelle Barron of Fairy Meadow Flowers knows that the key to growing happy plants is allowing the Earth to do its thing. All that grows upon this luscious Earth needs to mesh together to find what feels right. Their flower farm in Hamden, CT, which helps stocks their New Haven storefront, is not organized in neat rows. Rather, Isabelle allows the flowers to bloom together, finding new companion plants the Farmers Almanac has never found, seeing that the Earth likes marigolds right there, right there, and that the land they now care for has been longing to shed its monoculture grass and grow into something more like the fairy meadow of their namesake.

Isabelle knows that flowers grow well in harmony with others, but has not always allowed themself to live in that way. Only recently, since kicking off their flower farming path, have they been embraced in community and, as their flowers would show them, they could bloom in ways they have never seen before.

Isabelle was born in the brutal environment of New York. The flora and fauna of Manhattan was few and far between, and when seen, was often dismissed. They remember seeing a pigeon with a broken leg wriggling on a Manhattan sidewalk, and told not to tend to the bird but to let its pain blend into the landscape. “That always felt impossible for me to accept,” they said. “You’re sort of taught to just ignore the pigeon with the broken leg—you know, it’s just part of daily life.” They did not enjoy going to school in the city, and often dreamed of running into the woods of their family’s plot of land in Kent, Connecticut. They also felt at peace in their grandpa’s garden in Chicago. The former pathologist took such meticulous care of his plants that he divided the soil for each type of flower with deep metal dividers beneath the soil, designing dirt that each plant liked the most. “He really knew every single plant as if they were one of his patients,” Isabelle said. After visits to these nature reserves, they would return to New York with less nurturing than they needed.

New York was then rushed to a halt during 9/11, 11-year old Isabelle staring at the smoke-filled sky at school. They looked at their teacher, sobbing, and felt a veil lifted over a city culture where people often mask emotion. “She just put her head on the desk and started crying, and she said, ‘There were people in there, and they’re dead now.’ And I was like, I know that’s right. No one else will say that right now.” They saw a genuine reaction to the immense death, and not letting it blend into the landscape. After school, Isabelle’s family rushed out of New York. Their mom, dad, and brother took an eight hour car ride that otherwise would have taken two hours to Kent.

This moment of reflection was important for Isabelle’s dad, who considered bucket-list items in such a close-to-death moment. After getting his wife’s agreement, Isabelle’s dad moved their whole family to Rome, Italy, and enrolled Isabelle into the local school system at 13 years old. Although the move was supposed to be a one year Italian experiment, Isabelle ended up living there for the next eight years, spending their already uncomfortable teen years in a completely uncomfortable environment.. “I didn’t speak any Italian. I was bullied pretty intensely,” they recalled.

But Isabelle found comfort in many modes of life that were new to them. They saw a culture where there were no to-go coffee, where people took the time to enjoy a cup in a cafe. They saw a culture where people valued sitting down for dinner with their family. They saw centuries old plants growing along the outside of centuries old buildings. They saw a culture with healthcare for all, with healthier lives, where people slowed down.

Isabelle found people in their school system who slowed down to care for their learning style as well. They were unable to learn in a traditional school setting, and ended up spending most of their time in the art room, experimenting with every type of creative method. The teacher only had Isabelle go to the most essential classes through high school, alongside the six other students in their class. This was important not only for Isabelle to gain an education, but also for them to survive.

When they turned 20, Isabelle’s grandfather died. With their father, Isabelle visited Chicago to check in on their grandmother. Isabelle and their dad continued the grandfather’s gardening, making window boxes for their grandma and planting flowers outside. “It was the most conscious of the present we ever saw her,” Isabelle said. “It sparked her memory and her senses in this really remarkable way.” It made Isabelle see what flowers can do for someone, bringing them light and healing.

Around the same time, Isabelle started to spend much of their time with an Italian witch, walking two and a half hours back and forth to the top of a local hill to spend time with someone also interested in the genuine workings beneath the surface. “She really opened my eyes to things beyond our comprehension on an earthly plane,” they said.

Isabelle ended up visiting the United States more, and decided to move there to explore outside the old world of Italy. Joining their dad on a work trip to Austin, Texas, they went to Casa de Luz, a macrobiotic crunchy restaurant, and met a group outside performing energy work. When one practitioner laid hands on their head, Isabelle felt something profound shift: “It actually felt scary — it felt like my skull was going to explode with gold light, and it was flooding my brain… it was all I was seeing, and I felt it through my whole body.” It was their first glimpse of a place, and people, that welcomed their way of being. “Everyone looked like they didn’t belong in the rest of the world, but they had found a place to belong, and they seemed content.” Isabelle wanted that feeling, and moved to Austin.

But into the move, they realized the environment was not right for them. They could not stand the intense heat, especially while biking around the city. To find solace, they rented a community garden bed in Austin. “I just felt uncomfortable most of the time, and that was the most comfortable and at peace and excited I felt, working with plants.” But still, the climate was too brutal. With a boyfriend, they moved to Asheville, North Carolina on their 27th birthday. But on that event-packed day, their boyfriend broke up with them. “Thank God he did,” Isabelle said. “I was afraid to move alone again, and he was just the cosmic chariot to Asheville.” It unleashed them to explore, again, on their own. They continued nannying and doula work they did in Austin, but started to build upon their gardening, working at a seed company called Sow True Seed, and then renting a part of land as part of a backyard-leasing local program. “I was so bad at it the first year—I really had like one successful crop.” They started growing flowers, and then a flower subscription service, selling huge bouquets to their two subscribers. They arranged flowers for a friend’s wedding. They started to make grooves in sharing their growth.

Their family moved back to Connecticut, and drove up to visit. Bored and curious what rural Tinder looked like, they went on the app, and ended up matching with someone in New Haven: Unison. They followed each other on Instagram, and Isabelle started digitally crushing on them.

Then on New Year’s Eve heading into 2020, they wished that they would find true love. On January 1, 2020, Unison messaged them out of the blue on Instagram. After chatting, Isabelle decided to visit Unison, and continued travelling back and forth to see each other.

They were driving back to North Carolina after a Connecticut visit in March, and saw COVID shutting more and more down by the hour. They did not want to hunker down so far away from Unison, and decided to leave their flower farm in North Carolina and build new floral roots in New Haven, bunkered up with Unison in East Rock.

They ended up starting to grow flowers in Unison’s friend’s mom’s backyard, and in their neighbors’ shared backyard on Nash St. They started a subscription service and an Instagram, first Best Friends Flowers and then Fairy Meadow Flowers. They were meeting and connecting with community even in a siloed time. They began to see more and more demand for flowers, particularly through pop-ups at local coffee stores and wedding events.

At the end of 2021, Unison and Isabelle moved out of East Rock to a former apple orchard in Hamden to begin rewilding the environment and starting a flower farm. “It’s really wild to see how quickly the ecosystem can shift when you just help restore the Earth back to closer to its natural state of being.” They have seen more demand from their flower farm, culminating in opening their own storefront in East Rock, the same name as their flower farm.

Now, Isabelle is not only communing with flowers – they also feed and are fed with a community that bucks against the traditions of business ownership. Isabelle’s shop is a display of the community that adores them: ceramists, jewelers, crocheters all sharing their work alongside the flowers Isabelle loves.

Isabelle has often been the lonely store visitor, not sure how they fit into a space, in a new city, in a new path. They have created this space to not only grow what they know is a part of healing the Earth, but also to help grow the community that they longed for in their travels. “I've always really wanted community. I didn’t know if it was possible,” Isabelle said. “So I thought—why not try to give what I want most?” Their warmth and kindness has grown as a companion plant to the Connecticut community, one that only gets stronger with new seasons and makes sturdier roots. Although this rooting in the community is new to them, they have breathed more life into what makes New Haven the nature-centric, queer-haven, nontraditional city that people love. Isabelle is making the city more beautiful and growing it alongside themself.

Visit Fairy Meadow Flowers at 979 State St, New Haven, CT, or on Instagram @fairy_meadow_flowers