About Wildwood Springs

A quiet life in the natural world.

Wildwood Springs grew from a habit of paying attention.

I’m Michelle — a naturalist at heart, herbalist, artist and collector of the small things that are easily passed by. I live in Central Florida with my family, where much of my time is spent outside: growing herbs, watching wildlife, painting plants, collecting curiosities and trying to learn the names and stories of the things that share this place with us.

My interest in plants has grown through years of observing, growing, gathering and learning from the natural world around me. Along the way, I trained as an aromatherapist with ITEC and completed the UF/IFAS Florida Master Naturalist Program, both of which deepened an already longstanding curiosity about plants, ecology and our relationship with the landscapes we live in.

Wildwood Springs is a place for bringing those threads together — traditional plant knowledge, natural history, seasonal observation and the simple practice of paying closer attention to what is growing, flowering, flying and changing around us. It isn’t intended to be a catalogue of expertise, but a record of noticing.

Here I collect field notes, botanical observations, traditional plant knowledge, folklore and some of my own artwork. There will probably be feathers, bones, weeds, moths and muddy footprints too.

Mostly, this is a place for the things I don’t want to hurry past.

For those who still stop to look.