After her mother’s death in 2011, Michelle Davis started her blog, Cherry Blossom 56, as a creative outlet to voice how she felt throughout high school.
Cherry Blossom 56 eventually transformed into The Botanical Texan, a website filled with DIY crafts, fun places to travel to in Texas and the ultimate guide on caring for and finding the perfect plants. The blog gives Davis an opportunity to share her interests while incorporating a botanical twist.
“When my mom first passed away, [the blog was for] talking about struggles, not having someone to talk to and then just like venting online,” Davis said. “If you go far back you can find some of the vents, I haven’t taken them down, but they were part of something that went on in my life. As I kind of moved away from her death, I started to try to find something that brought more life back into my life because after she passed away everything that I had enjoyed, I didn’t enjoy anymore so I was like, ‘I need to find something I enjoy,’ and so that became crafting.”
Davis moved to Minneapolis to study art her freshman year of college, but decided it was not the place for her after experiencing her first winter storm. She decided to move back to Texas to live with her father and enroll in community college to search for something she is passionate about.
Davis ended up finding her love for landscape architecture through “Hotel Impossible,” a home improvement television show she watches with her father. She describes her job as being a “civil engineer [who] actually makes things look pretty.”
“I think when I first started, I saw myself doing a lot of residential type of landscape, which I don’t do at all now, but then as I got exposed to more things throughout school, I was like, ‘Oh I really like the commercial side,’ and in particular, I really want to go into zoo design,” Davis said. “That’s something I really like to branch into because I volunteer at the Frank Buck Zoo on the weekends and getting to see the conservational efforts that they’re doing and the conservational efforts that we do on our field [make me think], ‘Ugh, they would mesh together so well.’”
Denton resident Britney Marshall is a reader of The Botanical Texan who has seen the blog grow since its start.
“I knew when it was Cherry Blossom 56, I remember when she was changing it and she drew the Texas with the plants,” Marshall said. “I’m so proud of her, it’s so hard to juggle to anything. She has a full-time job and especially these past couple of years she has been studying for her licensing exams, and she’s so busy but she’s so diligent about writing posts and making them good for the viewers.”
Denton resident Noel Salinas met Davis through a church organization and has been dating her for almost three-and-a-half years. Salinas occasionally helps Davis with taking photos for The Botanical Texan.
“She does amazing work and she does content and creates content that I know myself that I could never create, or the photos she edits, I could never edit that photo and so I’m extremely proud of her on her blog, like words can’t even describe how proud I am of her,” Salinas said. “I can’t say that I have ever been to congress to advocate for a bill or anything like that so like that’s just amazing, she’s extremely talented.”
Davis has also served as an advocate for policy change for the environment and surrounding communities. In 2019, she traveled to Washington D.C. with the American Society of Landscape Architects to advocate for a clean water bill as well as bringing more revenue to help improve the National Parks.
As Davis continues to grow and expand her blog, she hopes her posts inspired others to pursue what they love, and going forward, she plans to expand her network through Instagram and Pinterest. To read The Botanical Texan and learn more about Davis’ work, individuals can visit thebotanicaltexan.com
Courtesy Michelle Davis