About our Botanical Project:

We are a small scale urban farm and nursery that specializes in rare and unique plants from all over the world! We focus heavily on tropical fruit and fragrant flowers, but have many things in between! Starting from ‘scratch’ with a handful of plants, we have pushed into unknown territories over the past 5 years, transforming our small property into a haven with 300+ species and varieties of plants!

Our mission:

To share the love, inspiration and beauty of plants with everyone, through plants themselves and other products which involve or are derived from them and to celebrate our position as humans, to interact with them in harmony for greater abundance and an enriched vibrant life. We hope to educate, empower, equip and enhance peoples lives with the treasures we harbor here, and by merging the ideals of conservation, regenerative agriculture, decadence, archaic knowledge and modern potential.

Our Story:

We chose the Ylang-Ylang Tree as the name of out project because the world-famous Chanel no. 5 flower was already Jon’s most popular tincture in 2015. Georgia, who was always interested in fragrant flowers and perfumes, was enthralled with the possibilities this single botanical could produce. It was also the first tree in the collection which kicked off this fixation on increased botanical diversity. As fate would have it Jon and Georgia became inseparable in the summer of 2019, traveling and sharing their passion for foraging numerous edible medicinal and aromatic fungi and plants, from chanterelles and chicken of the woods in Appalachia to lilac and piñon pine sap from the high desert in New Mexico. Returning home on the cusp of 2020, they realized they had found a way to be together always through the world of plants and decided to steam ahead to pursue this vision. Committing to each other and to pursuing their mutual dream, they put down roots in their hometown of St Petersburg, FL and the seed of ‘The Ylang-Ylang Tree’ was planted! Just about as soon as this realization had come to them, the real shape of 2020 landed on everyone’s doorstep, which set a different backdrop to their passion for plants and pushed it to a new level. Sensing the urgency of the situation, they committed themselves to gather as many botanical items of self-sufficiency such as antiviral herbs, anticancer, antianxiety and food plants to buffer the real and potential scarcities the world scenario had made so intimidatingly evident. Over the next few trying years, they held to their course, racing to compile a collection of highly rare, useful and valuable plants effectively turning their modest 6000 sq ft property into a cutting edge, beyond world-class collection and micro jungle. What had started as a perfume garden, had transformed into the sprout of a new Eden, with some of the most rare and striking plants and fruits that are threatened with extinction due to habitat destruction from all corners of the globe.

About Georgia

Georgia with her keen nose for scent, grew up in St Petersburg alongside key limes, oranges, and mangos. Her father Gene grew up on one of the first Lychee plantations in the continental US so exotic fruit were a staple of her upbringing. She had been dabbling in and researching the art of perfume-making for years while running and curating a local art gallery on the beach. Her travels over the years to Spain and Costa Rica had left lasting impressions of the fragrant plants she encountered: whether it was the lovely sun-drenched neroli and roses in Seville, Spain, or peachy sweet tropical plumeria and exotic ylang-ylang by the shore in Manuel Antonia, Costa Rica, she dreamed of bottling them up to enjoy and share. So, she set out to seriously pursue the art, procuring over the course of several years the material required; alembics to do distillation of essential oils and hydrosols, obscure ingredients to make concrete and enfleurage perfumes, hand crafted bottles and more. She launched her own botanical project called Aura Perfumery in 2019. Acquiring a 100 year-old bungalow in her and Jon’s home town of St Petersburg, FL also in 2019, she hoped to fix it up and start a perfume garden, planting several fragrant species in the then-barren yard. Georgia is a Natural Perfumer and NEVER has ever used anything artificial in her perfumes.

About Jon

Jon is a Florida boy with a life-long affinity for plants. His grandmother Carolyn, gave him the ‘green thumb’ just about as soon as he was born, pouring over hundreds of pictures in her old plant books with him on her lap, and when he got a little older, taking him to nurseries whenever he would visit her in Ocala so that he could buy a new plant to cherish. His father was an active Marine Biologist when he was a kid so the taxonomy of Botany was a transition that came naturally with Latin names sticking in his mind like glue. Later on as an adult, he became known in his hometown for his unique herbal potions and edible flower extracts which he would sell at local markets. Researching Botanicals and Ethnobotany, he spent the period between 2013-2019 striving to learn as much as he could from new experiences in the field, experimenting with new plants for extracts, sourced from locales such as California and New Mexico where he played with the terroir of the coastal temperate forests, Sierra Nevada Mountains and high desert biomes. Travels to the Caribbean, Mexico, Guatemala and Costa Rica also deepened his fascination about uncommonly heard-of tropical fruits which had been an interest of his also since a young age. While living in Berkeley, California in 2016 he devised a new unique technique to capture the scent of fragrant flowers and transform them into edible flavor extracts. He fantasized about a time when he could give up moving around and finally try his hand living alongside these beautiful plants. From 2019 onward, he dove deep into the hidden world of rare tropical fruits and other useful plants, and discovered so much wonder and inspiration he just couldnt contain it!

Since you have found us, we sincerely hope we can be of service to you in some way with regard to any aspect of botanical intrigue, whatever it may be.

We strive to have something for everyone, even if you can’t, or don’t wish to grow a single plant!