Created with a passion for nature and a love for family.
Hello. My name is Daniela Honegger and I am the owner of Queen of the Meadow. I was born and raised in Switzerland and immigrated to the U.S. in the summer of 2004. Since I was a little girl I have loved being outside in nature, gathering plants, and herbs to create my own magic potions. It was later, while I was living in the rural Truchas Mountains of Northern New Mexico, that I started to realize processing herbs is my passion. An important part of my journey was working at Artemisia Herbs in Dixon, New Mexico.The amazing herbalist, Susan Feavearyear, taught me an incredible amount about medicinal plants, how to develop products with them, and how to bring a final product to the shelf. My time with her was invaluable! After moving to La Porte, Colorado, in the fall of 2006, I was ready to start my own business. I wanted to create a business that would include both my passion for natural ingredients, and my three children; Jocelyn, Gene, and Janis.
My mission became to create an all natural, organic line of skin care products with 100% plant-based ingredients and eco-friendly packaging. While flipping through pages of herb books, I came up with a name "Queen of the Meadow". I loved the beautiful vision I had of this queen and her meadow. I was also drawn to the name, because "Queen of the Meadow" is a real herb. With this name and my mission I was ready to begin this adventure.
After much research into ingredients, plants and sources I was ready to create my own unique formula. My products were well received by my community, and everything seemed to be falling into place. I started with my plant based skin care line, and was selling at the local Farmers' Markets in our region. Later, as my product line expanded, I created a website to sell online as well as in the market. Slowly, I began to move to the wholesale market and began seeing my products in local as well as national shops. All the while I was able to remain true to my mission, and include my children in the lessons of growing your own business.
Today, as I look back, although it was a lot of time and energy to get where we are now, it was a great learning process and very rewarding. In 2011 we were able to purchase 35 acres of land north of Fort Collins and built an earth friendly home and sustainable workshop. For more information and pictures of the building process and home please visit: nestledwithin.wordpress.com
More About Our Namesake Herb
"Queen of the Meadow" came to us as the name for our business not only because of the beautiful image those words present but also because this is an herb found in nature. An herbaceous perennial plant that is native to the Eastern and Central United States, its latin name is Eupatorium purpureum. It blooms in the late summer and fall, and sports beautiful lavender-purple flowers on purple stems which butterflies enjoy. The plants grow quite tall, up to eight feet in height.