Violet Lane
was born at the intersection of wellness & flowers and is the brain-child of owner and head floral designer, Megan Lane. We celebrate the powerful storytelling potential in flowers and understand the profound impact of nature to heal us inside and out <3
Artful Botanicals
are an expression of our design ethos. We look outside the flower itself to create floral designs that express the intense joy and nuance of a season captured in a vase. Our designs are a modern ode to texture & color, coupled with a deep veneration for the surrounding landscape of our truly beautiful Midwest heartland. We look backward in time for inspiration, with fine art, architecture, literature & print media as our muses.
for the Wildly Curious
is our rally cry to anyone in our community looking to join us. We’re all around you - people who know that through healing ourselves, we’re healing the whole damn planet, baby. If you’re wildly curious, we hope you’ll follow along.
Meet Megan
a recovering corporate girly turned all-around creator, my why is simple: I want to help people get closer to their own soul journey by living mine authentically. That means creating art that inspires, reading cards, advising your personal or business journey, and teaching about nature’s power to heal. I’ll share a bit of the finer details of my background below, but the
TLDR is I love nature and I love you, so let’s get together and make something beautiful <3
my floral background
Growing up, I helped my grandma tend to her beautiful gardens - seemingly endless hours of my youth were spent watering geraniums in every color. When it came time to settle into my own home, my mind immediately went to the outside space and all the possibilities that could bloom ;) I feel most comfortable outside, and bringing little flowers home with me from trips to the farmer’s market was the self-care my 20-something self needed to lift my spirits when I was missing the outdoors.
I began working with flowers in 2021 after a floral retreat by local flower farm legends PepperHarrow @pepperharrow_ gave me the creative space and floral resources to confirm to myself that my creative design instinct ran deep.
In a world increasingly copy & pasted, I design how nature is, with the imperfections oftentimes the flourish that moves us to our core. I’m endlessly inspired by the soul of a new city, a stunning tree silhouette, and sunrises, always sunrises. My hope is that one of my designs will inspire you to consider yourself and your place in the natural world in a new way.
my business background
I’ve been blessed to work in the Ames, IA area most of my career and have gathered experiences that provided first-hand insights into how businesses are run. At the heart of these experiences, I took complex and technical concepts, like banking, insurance, sales philosophy, and AI and made them accessible to people who needed a trusted advisor through their particular journey. I’m a passionate advocate for transparency in business, and I hope you will find within this site everything you need to trust us as your floral and wellness bestie in Central Iowa. We’re big fans of collaboration, so if what we do resonates, reach out!
my spiritual background
Hiding in the bluffs of the driftless region, Decorah, IA is a not-so-hidden-anymore gem of a community along the Upper Iowa River. At Luther College, I majored in both Communications as well as Religion. I took my first (required) religion course the 1st semester of my freshman year “to get it out of the way”, and from there I quickly added it as a minor and then later, as a major. I have a deep admiration for the study of myth and archetypes, and all religions are ripe with such stories.
Due to the close proximity of the college to the Ryumonji Zen Monastery where I attended sitting meditation sessions and my time spent in Nagasaki, Japan, I found refuge in zen Buddhism, as well as indigenous philosophies like Shinto and Taoism. My meditation practice is something I’ve carried with me everywhere I go in this life, and has taken many forms over the past decade allowing for life to change and for my practice to ebb & flow like water with it.
why Violet Lane
During the pandemic, I spent an obsessive amount of time in nature, and that led me to want to change the rhythms and patterns in my life. Used to a corporate 90 day cycle, I now have an intimate front-row seat to the changing seasons in nature (read more about how we incorporate nature into our designs in our sustainability commitment). It is through floral design that I give back to my community and assist them through both their most joyful and most challenging of occasions.
I encourage many that I meet to study the concept of ikigai, another gift from the Japanese. Ikigai encourages us all to find the middle path that can be found by centering on the following 4 elements in one’s life: what you love, what the world needs, what you are good at, and what you are paid for.
Violet Lane is an expression of my ikigai, and I don’t promise to show up perfectly every time, but I do promise to create a safe space for you to explore what it means to find your ikigai.
Love always, Megan