About

I’m Dawnn Rabinovich Meiers, Psy.D., owner of Lavender Belle Farm. I’m a long-time Pacific Northwest resident (since 1979), and for the past twenty-plus years, I’ve cultivated wellness for people and planet, as a psychologist, community educator, and therapeutic gardener.

Me, happy to be outside!

Read more about my love of gardening in this interview with the Seattle Times. Currently, I spend as much time as possible with my fingers in the dirt, sowing seeds and propagating herbs, while promoting (and personally experiencing) the many benefits of people-plant connections through various community outreach projects. I also operate a part-time behavioral health practice that centers nature-based health.

Lavender Belle Farm germinated in 2015, when our family moved onto a two-acre property outside Portland, Oregon, which I named after our daughter (“Belle”) and my long-standing love of lavender (although I grew quite a bit more, which you can read about here).

In the early years, I attended a small farm conference and became a certified Oregon State University Extension Master Gardener. In Summer 2019, I closed my full-time psychotherapy practice to pursue a sabbatical in the field of therapeutic horticulture, launching several community garden projects as well as The SAVOR Project blog. I also completed the OSU Growing Farms: Successful Whole Farm Management course. However, the pandemic and other life events took our farm family in a very different direction, and in December 2020, we moved to Beacon Hill, Seattle, Washington.

For the next three years, I grew, sold, and donated thousands of plant starts – on my rooftop, balcony, garage, tiny front yard, and P-Patch plot. In July 2023, I attended the New York Botanical Garden’s three-week Therapeutic Horticulture Intensive training (with visits to my grandparents’ old neighborhoods in Astoria, Queens and the Lower East Side). I’ve presented several times at the Canadian Horticultural Therapy Association’s annual conference and facilitated a Therapeutic Gardening workshop at the UW Botanic Gardens Center for Urban Horticulture. I love teaching, so check out my Portland Community College instructor page for upcoming gardening classes.

In 2023, our family temporarily returned to Portland, where I shared Lavender Belle Farm products with the Rocky Butte Farmer’s Market, the Eastside Jewish Commons Hanukkah Market, and other community organizations. We’re now living back in the greater Seattle area, where I’ve recently completed the King County Master Gardener training program. In the coming years, stay tuned for more “big spirit, small space” growing adventures!