Late into the night and early morning last August, Gillian “Gilly” Orben ’23 worked alone in the elegant ballroom in the Country Club of Fairfield. There, the founder and sole employee of Connecticut’s Seeds to Blooms flower company stood on a ladder, carefully draping lavender, ivory, and antique pink roses from a two-tier chandelier over the dance floor. Her biggest challenge: keeping the delicate blooms perky, which required placing each of the 200 buds in its own water vial prior to hanging.

“What you see at a wedding is 2% of the time invested,” says Orben, who had tilled and toiled for eight months in preparation for the wedding, starting with planting seeds, bulbs, and bushes — while also working a full-time job as a paralegal.

But Orben, who majored in environmental studies, accepts what some might consider tedium. And she welcomes hard work. “If I’m not super busy, I ruminate,” she says.

For someone who’s fought depression, anxiety, and obsessive-compulsive disorder since her teens, “being busy is a good thing.” So when COVID-19 brought life to a standstill in 2020 and forced college students off campus during Orben’s sophomore year at Colgate, she worried how the isolation and uncertainty would impact her mental health — and that of her peers back home in Fairfield.

“Many people I knew were struggling, but nobody was talking about it,” says Orben.

Seeking to lift her own spirits and those of others — and to encourage openness about mental health — she found an answer in her own backyard.

A 5,000-square-foot plot on her family’s 3 acres became her refuge.

“I discovered a passion for gardening, which, to me, doesn’t feel like work,” says Orben. “It challenges you in a good way. And I’ve learned a ton of patience. You can’t control nature. You must take things as they come.”

Soon, she had planted more than a hundred varieties, from hydrangeas to roses to vibrant anemones (her favorite). By 2023 her hobby had blossomed into a part-time business. She began to share photos of her garden and spread the word about her company on social media, attracting the attention of the local news, which featured Orben in a segment on small businesses in October 2023.

As Seeds to Blooms started to grow, so did the mission behind it.

In 2024 Orben partnered with Here for You, a local clothing shop run by women with a similar mental health–awareness mission. She also sold flowers to raise funds for mental health charities on roadside pop-ups and at the Greenfield Hill Congregational Church.

“As much as I love flowers, I care more about spreading the message that we should be open about our mental health,” Orben says.

Her previous plans to attend law school also changed around this time. Like her brother and father, who work in finance, she was always good at numbers and had even managed her own investment portfolio since her first year at Colgate. So in February, she took a chance and interviewed for a finance position she learned about through a family friend — and was soon hired as an investor relations analyst at New York investment firm Ruane Cunniff LP.

Since then, Orben’s weekly routine has become a study in contrasts. Waking at 5 a.m., she often harvests flowers for an hour, wearing pale pink overalls, Barbie-pink Crocs, fuchsia gardening gloves, and a straw sunbonnet. Then, four days a week, she commutes 57 miles to Manhattan to learn and apply a financial expertise that runs in the family.

“I like to push myself,” Orben says.

She also devotes considerable time to growing Seeds to Blooms’ Instagram, which has evolved into a mental health support group — with plenty of floral eye candy. Her posts often invite others to share kind words and talk openly about their emotions.

“I’m so glad when people talk about their struggles, whether it’s via DMs or more publicly,” Orben says.

She keeps the “micro-farm” strictly organic, pesticide-free, and local, not selling to anyone more than 30 minutes away. “I want everything to be fresh and not feel like it came from a store.”

“It’s so rewarding to grow flowers that show that someone cares,” Orben says. “Flowers spread beauty — and a message of kindness and love.”