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Margot Shaw had always nurtured a profound appreciation of beauty, but it wasn't until her daughter's wedding that she discovered the perfect vehicle: flower arrangements.

"I've always loved beauty and I think I have an eye for it," she said. "Both of my parents were aesthetes, and I think I picked up on that through osmosis."

Shaw had lived whole portions of her life in places known for differing, sometimes contradictory definitions of beauty—Switzerland and Virginia, New York City and Texas—but when she returned to her hometown of Birmingham, Ala., as the wife of an Episcopal minister and the mother of three girls, the offerings available to her inner aesthete tended to fall on the, shall we say, humble side. Photography classes, choir practice and daily journaling kept her creative juices flowing, but it was while handling flower duties for her oldest daughter's wedding that Shaw tapped into one of the south's greatest artistic mediums.

"In Birmingham, it's not who your people are, it's who you studied flowers with," she said. "It's a city blessed with major amounts of floral talent."

Shaw signed up with Wildflower Designs, headed by Sybil Sylvester. A columnist with "Southern Accents" magazine and a pioneer of what is known as European hand-tying (a technique of stem arrangement that enables a bouquet to stand alone, without aid of vase), Sylvester's name inspires feelings of reverence among people who know flowers. Shaw was so excited to learn from the master that she initially forewent payment.

"I was an intern at age 46," Shaw said. "But after a while I could do anything, and [Sylvester] started paying me because I was such an asset."

It was while working at Wildflower Designs that Shaw discovered flowers' "healing powers."

"I was going through a bumpy time emotionally, but whenever I walked into the shop I'd be transported," she said. "There you are, surrounded by these miracles of color and light and form and texture. The whole environment was just really healing and comforting."

So comforting, in fact, that Shaw decided to spread the gospel. For the past year she has been working on the development of a quarterly magazine titled, appropriately, Flower. With coverage of such flora-centric American cities as Birmingham, Nashville, New Orleans and New York, the magazine is scheduled to launch in spring of 2007.

"I think there's a need," Shaw said. "There are flower publications coming out of England and France and the Netherlands, and of course there are tons of gardening magazines in this country, but nothing about flowers exclusively. So far, the response has been phenomenal."

The phenomenal response—advance subscription requests have come from as far south as Miami and as far north as Philadelphia—can be partly attributed to Shaw's speaking at countless gardening club meetings or, as she says, "working the chicken salad circuit."

"Originally I thought I'd have someone else doing the publicity, but later on I realized that I wanted to do it," she said. "It's my baby, after all."

"It's funny," she added. "I thought by this time I'd be winding down but here I am, getting all wound up."