Sea & Soil and Frost & Found

Two talented women see flowers and plants in a way most have never imagined.   Photos courtesy of Elizabeth Willis Photography Photos courtesy of Shipyard Photography Jessica Taylor Olson found her path, a true garden path, simply by serendipity. The energetic and enthusiastic floral designer recalls as a young child, after her family moved to Beverly, Massachusetts, she looked for solace from being the new kid in an unfamiliar community. “When we moved it felt very abrupt and kind of shook up my world,” Jessica explains. “I asked my parents if I could have a secret garden behind our house, and so we made one. I did really like the idea of creating gardens and shaping the space, and making rooms with natural materials. I would scratch in the dirt and try to plant corns seeds or whatever I could find. But then my mother gave me seedlings from her herb garden, things like lemon balm and lovage, and taught me to grow parsley and cilantro; that was when I had my first success.” Jessica tending flowers in her garden. Today, Jessica and her husband Blake live in Wellfleet, and like so many young couples on the Cape, their livelihood is a collection of employment opportunities in an effort to allow them to live in the place they love most. Blake, an oyster farmer, summered in Wellfleet for most of his life and moved there permanently when he turned 18. Since Jessica had grown up on the North Shore, her summers were spent there, or at the lakes in New Hampshire. A college friend asked if she wanted to get a job waitressing in Wellfleet after graduation. That summer turned in to three summers and ultimately a fork in her life’s path upon meeting Blake.  Today, the couple rent a home in…