Kathleen Ferguson grabbed a pair of pruning shears from a mailbox nailed to a garden bed and leaned down to cut bunches of Orlaya grandiflora on the flower-filled hillside. "This property has a pulse," she said as she placed the white lace flowers into a bucket of water. "The wildlife is incredible here. I've caught bees napping in the sunflowers."
With limited land for green space in Los Angeles, many people are growing flowers for sale in surprising places — under power lines and in their front and backyards. In Ferguson's case, the landscape designer is propagating flowers on a vacant lot offered by a friend, screenwriter Dalan Musson, whom she met while volunteering at the North Central Animal Shelter in L.A.
"Just being able to walk outside and see monarch butterflies and bees flying around my backyard is amazing," Musson said of Frogtown Flora's effect on the wildlife on his 1.5-acre property in Eagle Rock. "It makes me feel viscerally connected to the natural world."
It's magical for Ferguson too, who over the last 11 months has built a colorful farm on the half-acre with flowers, including Agrostemma, irises, zinnias, cosmos, roses, sunflowers, sweet peas, French dianthus and ranunculus. White marigolds and green onions are planted to help deter the skunks, raccoons and squirrels that like to pull out her dahlias. Volunteer tomatoes and cilantro that materialized from the compost are left to bolt and blossom. "I like to mix it up," she said of the variety of plant life. "If something comes up, I'm OK with letting it grow."
Read more at msn.com