MUM'S THE FLOWER OF FALL, with JESSICA HALL OF HARMONY HARVEST FLOWER FARM
- Jennifer Jewell
- 2 days ago
- 7 min read
This week on Cultivating Place, we celebrate late summer and fall on the horizon in conversation about one of fall’s stars in the garden…..past, present, and future.
CP host Ben Futa is in conversation with Jessica Hall of Harmony Harvest Flower Farm based in Weyers Cave, Virginia exploring more about their "mum project" which seeks to bring chrysanthemum production back to the U.S. through preserving, sharing, and evaluating heirloom/heritage mums.
On November 13th, 2025 Harmony Harvest's annual Virtual Mum Summit returns, bringing together growers, designers, and flower lovers for a full day of inspiration, learning, and fun.
"Harmony Harvest Flower Farm is a 20-acre cut flower farm located in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia that ships mixed bouquets and bulk flowers nationwide and offers a local agritourism experience. To us however, the farm is so much more than that. It's a way to build connections between people, strengthen our community, and rediscover the wonder of Mother Nature. Harmony Harvest Farm's story is woven with the idea that all people can find joy together - and this story is punctuated by flowers. The farm is owned and operated by sisters Jessica Hall and Stephanie Duncan, and their mom, Chris Auville, or as they like to call her, The Lady Monarch."
Jessica is the co-owner and founder of Harmony Harvest Farm, they grow over 200 varieties of flowers, including heirloom chrysanthemum, and their expertise has led to the farm’s position as a national trial farm for new varieties being brought to market by international breeders.
As the early days of autumn nip at our heals and our hearts, we're thrilled to share this conversation forward. If you think you know chrysanthemums – you may be in for a surprise.
Follow Harmony Harvest online:
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All photos Courtesy of Harmony Harvest Flower Farm. All rights reserved.
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JOIN US again next week, Jennifer is in Cincinnati, Ohio (in person and on the program) reaching new heights! Cincinnati is also known as the "Green City" and she is in conversation with Rose Seeger, of Green City Resources whose green roofs and rooftop gardens can be found all across the city at universities and hospitals and beyond. Bringing habitat, climate control, beauty and healing - at elevation.. That's right here, next week. Listen in!
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Thinking out loud this week...
Hey, y'all, it's Ben—
Jessica Hall is the founder and co-owner of Harmony Harvest Farm, and by now, I hope you can see how they are so much more than “just” a cut flower farm. Harmony Harvest is a repository of community, cultural, and horticultural common wealth. For those who don’t know, before I found my way to owning my own plant based business in 2021, I spent a decade in public botanical gardens, institutions often described living museums.
What sets a botanical garden apart from an entity like Harmony Harvest? Not all that much, really – they have a defined curation and living collections focus
that determines which plants they bring together to preserve and protect: in this case, heirloom chrysanthemums. They conduct plant trials, evaluating, documenting and sharing important and noteworthy traits and behaviors.
They invite the public to experience their farm, a thoughtful and curated experience with unique “garden rooms” and interpretive signage throughout the property. They’ve thought a lot about what we’d call “the guest experience” in a public garden.
If any of you follow Floret Farm on the opposite cost of North America, they’re doing similar work with heirloom roses, crabapples, lilacs, and more. Erin, the founder of Floret, has been a guest on Cultivating Place many times, and I’d recommend finding her past conversations with Jennifer. With so much in common, I’m most intrigued by how these flower farms stand apart from botanical institutions.
Farms like Harmony Harvest have made an intentional commitment to share the plants in their collection, and not just with other institutions – but with anyone and everyone. Anyone who loves flowers, anyone who loves nature, and anyone looking for a new relationship with their place…
They care deeply about preserving and celebrating these special and often overlooked, underappreciated, and certainly undervalued plants – plants with soul, character, individuality, durability, and beauty. This is perhaps where farms differ most from institutions: farms are about producing an abundance worth sharing, and the institutions seem to focus most on collection and preservation. It is the rare public garden, at least in North America, that has a robust and active plant sales area that is intentionally focused on sharing that collection with visitors on a regular basis.
I love how Harmony Harvest is flipping the script on this, and leading by example in showing us all a new way forward, in so many ways: economically, agriculturally, ecologically, and communally. The corners of our horticultural world still feel siloed to me, and I wonder how often are public gardens are looking beyond their gates and exploring new community, social, and commercial ventures, things that might directly connect to their ideals of conservation, preservation, and connection? What could public gardens learn from farmers, and what could farmers learn from institutions?
It bears repeating: we have a lot we could learn from one another. In a time of ironic disconnection, dystopia, and upheaval, I can’t help feeling that we need to keep sharing what we know, what we’re learning, and what’s working. We need to crowdsource solutions, and that’s exactly what Jessica and her
team at Harmony Harvest are doing. Their online mum sale is live right now, and it’s the perfect time to head on over and snag a few of these special gems for yourself. I ordered some last year, and they arrived healthy and happy this spring. They’re now growing in a raised bed/trial area along the side of our house, happy as a clam, already setting buds. I can’t wait to see what emerges in a few weeks.
I love how Jessica described the origin story of Harmony Harvest as a deep and intuitive calling toward a life lived with and on purpose. That clarity of intention and focus is powerful, as is the ability to listen to that inner voice and gut feeling when it comes to pursuing things that feel different, new, scary, and uncertain. Especially in the context of those feelings, learning to trust yourself, your potential, and the ability of plants to be abundance multipliers is not only a super power, I would say it’s essential, especially when owning a business. Plants have their own super powers in that they grow us in return. Our purpose, our spirits, our connection to others, and our ability to feel hope and joy – all can be found and reinforced while growing plants.
Throughout the conversation with Jessica, I hope you’ll continue to notice this thread of her story. And, if this might find you on a precipice of making a major shift or starting something new, I hope it gives you the courage and conviction you need to put that first seed in the ground and see what happens.
Harmony Harvest first came on my radar about a year ago when I stumbled upon their annual mum sale (which is happening right now!) I LOVE late-flowering hardy perennials – there’s something about finding things that bloom in September through November that totally captures my attention.
I think it has to do with my general energy as a gardener round about this time of year. Here in our corner of the Midwest in Northern Indiana, we’re coming off one of our warmest summers on record, and frankly – I’m exhausted. It feels like all I did was hang on for dear life for the past 10 weeks. By this point in the year, I need the garden to “just do its thing” because I don’t have the energy to putter and tackle projects like I did in March-June. But I still want to spend time outside, in the garden, and I’m not ready for the show to be over just yet…
I need plants that will perform with minimal input and fuss and push through future rough summers, and while half of our yard is now a drought-tolerant meadow with mostly native plants, I always love to discover and explore something unfamiliar. I’m also now a small-scale urban flower farmer myself, and these heritage chrysanthemums seem to be checking multiple boxes…
No matter why you might want to try your hand at these plants, for me, more than anything, knowing I’m part of and connected to something bigger – a national movement toward more local flowers, embracing seasonality, and discovering late-season flowers, check all the boxes.
My order of mum plugs from Harmony Harvest arrived this spring, and they’ve been growing happily in our raised bed trial garden along the side of the house, setting buds as we speak. I’m so excited.
If you’d like to scoop up your own heritage mums, Harmony Harvest’s fall preorder is now open on their website, and there’s a lot of beauty to discover.
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