In the Garden: With Sari Bellmer

A series exploring the inner and outer landscapes we tend

There are the gardens we grow with our hands—rows of herbs reaching toward sunlight, perennials that return season after season—and then there are the gardens we carry within us: the practices that ground us, the rhythms that sustain us, the relationships that root us to place and purpose. In The Garden is a series of conversations with people who tend both—who understand that cultivating plants and cultivating a life are not separate acts, but intimately woven together.

Our own Sari Bellmer knows gardens as places of both refuge and teaching. As the founder of Heilbron Herbs, a small-batch apothecary in Western North Carolina, she's spent years learning to work at the pace of roots and seasons. What began in 2018 in a forty-foot shipping container has become something increasingly rare: a business built on fresh botanicals from farms down the road, extracted and pressed by hand, season by season. Her tinctures and teas are made entirely from plants grown in the US by small farmers—one of the few brands working this way in an industry built on imported ingredients and industrial scale.

But this way of working isn't just about the product, it's about caring for the farmers who grow, the land that provides, and the whole connected system that makes wellness real. After a year marked by Hurricane Helene and collective upheaval, Sari has been asking harder questions about what it means to build something with integrity—and her answers keep returning to the same fertile ground: true wellbeing must consider more than just the person opening the bottle.

When you imagine yourself in your garden, what does that place feel like for you? What does it offer? In what life moments do you gravitate towards spending time in your garden?

The garden has always held so much freedom for me. It’s a place I go when I’m overwhelmed, when I need inspiration, or to better drop into my body. Tending the plants, hands in the moist soil, even weeding and mulching is so comforting and peaceful - so different from much of the rest of the world. In the midst of a stressful week or after the rush of getting my daughter to school, puttering around the garden, noticing the hum of the bees or the flight of a butterfly gives my mind such a necessary moment of rest. The pace of a perennial flower garden in particular is such a relieving juxtaposition to the rhythm of modern life - measured in months or even years as opposed to minutes and hours. So little is urgent. Nothing is perfect. It’s the process that’s delightful, the fantasy of what it could be, and the ways it takes on its own life - in fact its wildness is what makes it truly beautiful. 

You’ve carried plants with you for much of your life. Can you share an early memory of when plants first felt like companions or teachers to you?

When I was a child we would visit my grandparents in California every summer. My grandmother would take me into the meadows in the Sierras and teach me the names of wildflowers. After I learned a plant’s name, it was like running into a new friend the next time I saw it. Paintbrush, shooting star, lupin, larkspur. Each one has its own colors, habit, and feeling about it - their own spirit. I remember feeling so happy and proud to find these flowers again, to recognize them. It’s probably the most social I ever felt as a kid. I still find myself saying “Oh hello!” to plants as I pass them. 

What are the challenges you’ve faced in keeping your business intentionally small and hand-crafted, in a culture that often demands growth at any cost?

I love everything about staying true to my values for Heilbron but making money within those constructs is not easy! In a world and industry that cashes in on cheap labor and environmental exploitation, everything we do to avoid that is just more expensive. It can feel like we’re swimming upstream - but I guess that makes us stronger? We’re trying to find that sweet spot where we’re big enough to sustain ourselves but small enough to stay true to everything we stand for!

Which plants do you find yourself personally reaching for most often these days, and why?

I’ve really had a whole new appreciation for Ashwagandha since becoming a mother. The ways that parenthood stretches us, frazzles, affects our sleep, demands this reservoir of energy - even when we don’t feel like we have it - Ashwagandha has been such a help for me. Stabilizing, balancing, calming and energizing, I’ve really grown to love it. It’s name translates to something along the lines of “essence of a horse” and I love how the herb really does have that gentle yet strong feel to it. My favorite way to take it is in tincture form - in Resilience - or I’ll add a spoonful of powder to hot chocolate or a smoothie. 

What are you dreaming into Heilbron Herbs right now? What do you hope people carry with them when they use your tinctures or teas?

I am finally beginning to emerge from what felt like a black hole year after Hurricane Helene (and an otherwise generally horrific year on the world scale). What’s exciting is that all of the things that have felt hard this last year further clarified and solidified my vision for our work going forward. What feels really important now more than ever is that everything we do as a business is centered around true care. I’ve always said this but “wellness” is so counterproductive when it only considers the consumer who’s buying the product. We have to build a culture of wellbeing that encompasses so much more than that. I believe that all humans deserve to thrive and that the earth - and all its flora and fauna - is sacred, our greatest duty to care for, tend, and protect. We’re working to build up systems within Heilbron to better scaffold these dreams and play our small but worthy role in the culture of care that our world needs so badly. 

Ultimately, I hope that the things that we make help our customers feel taken care of and maybe even help them radiate that back out into the world, too.

If you were a plant in the garden this season, which one would you be and why?

Ooh I’d love to imagine myself an aster right now - so many popped up this year after all the hurricane disturbance and they have really captured me in their late-season bloom. There is something truly magical about a volunteer plant that feels like an addition to the garden instead of a weed. What a gift! Asters in particular seem like this symbol of resiliency - the plants are so tough and adaptable, and yet their flowers are so tender and whimsical. They seem to go with anything else in the garden and they have this drawn-out, magnificent moment of blossom right before everything gets hit with the frost.