Lifestyle
She turned an empty L.A. lot into a gorgeous mini flower farm as a 'win-win'
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.
The vacant hillside, before Kathleen Ferguson transformed it into a flower garden.
(Kathleen Ferguson)
Ferguson’s lush garden now.
“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.”
Outside the farm’s perimeter and at the top of the hillside, she is experimenting with drought-tolerant California native perennials, including fragrant pitcher sage, buckwheat, mallows and the native rose, Rosa Californica. She also grows native poppies — Matilija and California — penstemons, lupines and many different salvias.
Like many landscape designers used to working outdoors, Ferguson struggled with cabin fever during the COVID-19 pandemic. When she began listening to podcasts about locally grown blooms while tending to her own garden, she became “obsessed with flowers.”
“I would listen to podcasts all day long: ‘On Being,’ ‘Slow Flowers,’ ‘Cultivating Place’ and [‘Field & Garden’ from the Gardener’s Workshop] among them,” she said. She was struck by the environmental effect of imported flowers regarding pesticides, water and shipping, and her journey into urban flower farming was a natural progression. With a degree in horticulture from Cal Poly Pomona and a passion for the environment, she decided to grow what she describes as “climate-appropriate flower species” for Los Angeles.
A Sharp Dressed Man iris in Ferguson’s garden.
Ferguson tends to her flowers.
She learned a lot from the local flower growers she contacted on Instagram: “I noticed that all of the flower farmers, who happened to be women, are so passionate about what they do and so generous with their knowledge. I can reach out to any of them and ask, ‘What has been your experience with germination?’”
The flower growers hosted rotating potlucks at their farms and attended the San Fernando Valley Iris Society, of which Ferguson is a member.
Her first venture was a small plot at Jardin del Rio on Riverdale Avenue in 2022. But as her interest and knowledge grew, so did her ambitions. When Musson listened to how passionate she was about growing flowers locally, he offered a portion of his property as a new canvas for her urban flower farm.
“People are good,” Ferguson said of Musson. “People are generous; they want to help others realize their dreams. It’s a win-win for both of us.”
The challenge for Ferguson was the site. “I was excited,” she recalled, “but when I saw it was a slope, I knew it would be a lot of work.”
Once she understood how it might work, she built 12 four- by 10-foot raised beds on either side of a stairway with wood leftover from a construction project.
“My husband and I loaded the wood in a truck and brought it here,” she said. “Now, when I get extra wood, I can’t help but think about what I can grow here. We’re going to put in a greenhouse and add more beds. Everyone my age is into pilates and strength training, and when they suggest I go, I tell them, ‘Do you know how much strength training I do on this slope?’”
Ferguson’s good luck continued when she realized the soil didn’t need a lot of work because the land had never been developed. “We used what was here,” said the designer and certified arborist, who avoids chemicals. She started with a weed barrier, on-site soil, worm castings, compost and organic fertilizer. She tops the soil with her rabbits’ bedding when it’s time for it to be replaced and has been experimenting with sheep pellets to enrich the soil and help deter slugs, snails and weeds. She installed a drip irrigation system and pays Musson monthly for water, although she said she doesn’t use it much. “The natives don’t require any once established,” she added.
Calendula. Koko Loco roses. Penstemon.
Ferguson carries zinnias she grew from seeds up the stairs of her hillside garden.
She is a big fan of using rabbit waste as fertilizer because it doesn’t require composting like chicken manure.
“Rabbit poop is amazing and so good if you are trying to close the loop in your garden,” she says, “as you can feed them a lot of greens, and then what they produce goes straight into the garden.”
While some farmers choose what is trendy, Ferguson prefers to plant flowers she likes. It’s a strategy that is working.
“Kathleen’s flowers are dazzling,” said Lauri Kranz, who sells Ferguson’s flowers at L.A. Homefarm in Highland Park. “When Kathleen pulls up in her car with buckets full of just cut flowers, our customers start making a line to pull from the bounty that awaits.”
For Ferguson, a Los Angeles native who grew up in Koreatown, flowers are about more than just beauty.
Frogtown Flora bouquets. (Kathleen Ferguson)
Zinnias in Ferguson’s garden. (Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
There’s the feel-good aspect. “It brings so much joy,” she said. “Flowers have been in our culture for as long as humanity. Flowers symbolize so many things. It’s the whole cycle of life. They mean so much to so many different cultures. I love growing. I love the challenge. I also love that I’m making people happy.”
And then there’s the wildlife aspect.
During a recent visit, the contrast between the roar of the nearby 2 Freeway and the sound of birds chatting in the garden was startling. Over in a dense patch of sweet peas, Ferguson pointed out an example of her “nature first” philosophy in the way she strategically cut the flowers to preserve the privacy of a bird’s nest. “The flowers have brought so much additional life to this property,” she said. “I leave that section of sweet peas alone.”
In addition to selling flowers to Kranz and Gather Flora at the Original Los Angeles Flower Market in downtown , Ferguson recently started bouquet subscriptions and organized a tour of eight flower farms in L.A. She expected 50 people to show up. “We had to shut down our reservations when it hit 800,” she said, noting the interest in locally grown flowers.
According to a 2023 National Gardening Assn. Survey, 63% of respondents indicated that locally grown blooms were important when purchasing cut flowers and arrangements, while 59% indicated that blossoms grown in the United States were important when purchasing cut flowers and arrangements.
Like the slow food and slow fashion movements, consumers want to know where their flowers come from, said Debra Prinzing, founder of the Slow Flowers Society.
“I think people want to engage more deeply with nature as an antidote to the general stress and chaos of life,” Prinzing said. “Locally grown flowers, like those from Frogtown Flora and other Southern California flower farmers large and small, provide the sensory connections we crave. They reflect the season, moment in time and location when we commemorate special occasions or everyday gestures.”
Dawn Creek Blush in Ferguson’s garden.
Ferguson smells a rose in her hillside garden.
Ferguson, 55, also sells mixed vase arrangements and buckets of blooms to customers interested in fresh flowers but not necessarily a designed arrangement. “This is a great option for DIY weddings and celebrations and for those who just want beautiful, pesticide-free, fresh and locally grown flowers,” she said.
Walking up to the garden from the street along the long driveway, it’s clear why Musson is delighted with the plot’s transformation.
“Some days, when I’m exhausted, I’ll come up here and see a new flower that I’ve never seen before,” he said. “Sometimes I can’t believe I’m living in L.A. A Target is within walking distance, yet I have mature coastal live oaks, toyon and Catalina cherry trees. There are bats. I hear owls at night…. It’s amazing to have a place for the bees and butterflies to go.”
Archaeologists on a multi-year restoration project found 35 bottles of cherries and berries in five different pits in the Mount Vernon cellar.
George Brown/Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association
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George Brown/Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association
Archeologists at George Washington’s historic Virginia home have unearthed more than two dozen bottles of cherries and berries dating back to the 18th century in a particularly juicy find.
Officials first announced in April that they had discovered two glass jars of cherries, liquid and pits while excavating the cellar of Mount Vernon, the residence, plantation and final resting place of the nation’s first president.
Further sweetening the deal, last week they announced the discovery of 35 more fruit-filled vessels. Officials say 29 of the bottles are intact and contain “perfectly preserved cherries and berries, likely gooseberries or currants.”
“To our knowledge, this is an unprecedented find and nothing of this scale and significance has ever been excavated in North America,” Mount Vernon President and CEO Doug Bradburn said in a statement.
A view of preserved cherries inside one of the bottles found at Mount Vernon.
Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association
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Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association
The bottles, whose shapes are characteristic of styles from the 1740s and 1750s, were discovered in five storage pits throughout the cellar.
“These artifacts likely haven’t seen the light of day since before the American Revolution, perhaps forgotten when George Washington departed Mount Vernon to take command of the Continental Army,” Bradburn added.
That was in 1775.
Archaeologists revisited the site as part of a privately funded $40 million preservation project, aimed at ensuring Mount Vernon’s structural integrity and slated for completion in 2026 — just in time for America’s 250th birthday.
Now, fresh off this well-preserved discovery, researchers hope that modern technology will allow them to learn more about the cherries and, by extension, the world from which they came.
Jason Boroughs, the principal archaeologist at Mount Vernon, called the discovery “beyond extraordinary.” He told NPR and WBUR’s Here & Now in April that “intact 18th-century food remains is just not something that’s typically found.”
The cherries, he added, can serve as a window into the environment and cuisine of the period, as well as the entire Mount Vernon community — and not just the first first family.
“The bottles and the contents are actually material items that were connected to real lives and real people in the past,” Boroughs said. “They may have been intended for the Washingtons’ table, but they were certainly picked and packaged and stored by members of the enslaved community here.”
The cherries can teach us about life at Mount Vernon
George Washington’s residence in Mount Vernon, Va.,
Nathan Ellgren/AP
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Nathan Ellgren/AP
Boroughs said this month the bottles and their contents are a “testament to the knowledge and skill of the enslaved people who managed the food preparations from tree to table” at Mount Vernon.
At least 577 enslaved people lived at Mount Vernon during the course of Washington’s life, according to the institution. Washington left instructions in his will for the eventual emancipation of those he owned.
Among them was Doll, who was 38 in 1759 when Martha Washington brought her and her five children to the estate and placed her in charge of the kitchen.
Doll likely no longer had a formal work assignment in her later years, but continued to “use the kitchen to distill rose and mint water for medicinal purposes and to dry fruits such as cherries,” historians say.
In fact, a 1795 letter from Martha Washington to her niece, Fanny Bassett, appears to acknowledge Doll’s expertise in that area.
Martha Washington, writing from Philadelphia to Bassett, who lived at Mount Vernon, mentions that she would like “some of the morelly cherrys” dried, adding, “I should think old Doll cannot have forgot how to do them.”
18th-century bottles that contained fruit sit inside an archaeology lab near George Washington’s residence in Mount Vernon, Va., on Monday.
Nathan Ellgren/AP
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Nathan Ellgren/AP
It’s not the only clue that the Washingtons were fans of cherries.
Historians at Mount Vernon say the family often enjoyed a popular brandy-based drink called “Cherry Bounce,” made from cherry juice infused with spices over the course of two weeks.
Washington was apparently such a fan of the cordial that, as general, he packed a “canteen” of it — as well as Madeira and port — for a 1784 journey across the Allegheny Mountains.
Boroughs told Here & Now that there is also evidence — including from letters and diaries of Chesapeake planters — that families in the area would enjoy bowls of preserved cherries with meals.
“So it’s quite likely that these bottles had been on the Washingtons’ table more than once,” he said.
The 18th-century preservation process involved placing the cherries in dry bottles, corking them and then burying them under heavy clay, to protect the fleshy fruits from elements like mold and fungus.
Normally, Boroughs said, they were only intended to be stored as such for about a year.
“But it’s because of the way that they were placed in the ground and there they remained until this year that they were able to survive, basically, the ravages of time,” he explained.
Scientists hope the discovery might bear fruit
Fruit substance is carefully extracted from a bottle.
Tess Ostoyich/Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association
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Tess Ostoyich/Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association
Experts have extracted the contents of the bottles and refrigerated them at Mount Vernon, where they will undergo scientific analysis. The bottles themselves are “slowly drying” in the lab and will be sent off-site for conservation, officials say.
Mount Vernon is partnering with the United States Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS) to analyze the 250-year-old produce.
Benjamin Gutierrez, a plant geneticist and the apple and tart cherry curator at the USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit in New York, told NPR that the first thing his team did was advise the archeologists on how to extract the substance from the bottles in the hopes of best “capturing that moment of the last hands that put them in the earth.”
“We had anxiety,” he said. “You hear ‘fruit remains’ and you’re picturing what’s in the back of your fridge, right? It’s slowly degrading now that it’s out in the open, we’ve got to get to this before it turns to pulp.”
Gutierrez says their main priority is to extract DNA from the cherry tissue and compare it to their robust tart cherry database to try to identify — or at least narrow down — which variety the Washingtons grew and enjoyed at Mount Vernon. That could, in turn, shed light on how the Virginia climate has changed since.
Researchers suspect the cherries are of a tart variety, with a relatively acidic composition that likely helped aid in their preservation.
So far, Gutierrez says they have identified 54 cherry pits and 23 stems from sifting through just the first two vessels — which would suggest that each bottle was at least originally chock full of some 50 to 70 cherries.
Curator Lily Carhart holds up different samples of liquid they extracted from a few dozen bottles.
Nathan Ellgren/AP
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Nathan Ellgren/AP
The sheer amount of material, he adds, means researchers can be a little bit more “adventurous” in what they do to some of it while carefully preserving the rest.
“Who knows in another 100 years what other tests they might want to do,” he says.
In the nearer-term, his team hopes to have more answers within six months or a year. One of the biggest questions is whether they can germinate seeds from any of the cherry pits to grow a new tree.
Gutierrez says it’s somewhat of a long shot, since many of the pits are waterlogged. And even if germination is possible, the seeds wouldn’t produce the same exact “mother tree,” but rather the next generation of it.
Still, he says, it would be really something to plant a new tree out of historic cherry pits.
“We work so much with heirloom groups conserving grandma’s apple tree in their backyard,” he adds. “Fruit somehow captures our imagination and our culture more than any other crop, I feel like.”
And one could argue that would be the cherry on top for Washington of all people, given one of the most enduring myths about him centers on chopping down that very type of tree.
In this handout photo, Just Stop Oil protesters sit after spraying an orange substance on Stonehenge, in Salisbury, England, on Wednesday. (Just Stop Oil via AP)
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Two climate activists have been arrested at Stonehenge in England after spraying orange paint on the well-known historic landmark.
The group Just Stop Oil took credit for the Wednesday action, which they said was a call on the United Kingdom to stop the use of fossil fuels by 2030.
“Continuing to burn coal, oil and gas will result in the death of millions. We have to come together to defend humanity or we risk everything,” Just Stop Oil said in a press release.
The group said the orange cornflour used on the monument would wash away in the rain.
It identified the two activists responsible as University of Oxford student Niamh Lynch, 21, and Birmingham resident Rajan Naidu, 73.
The Wiltshire Police confirmed that officers arrested two people on suspicion of damaging Stonehenge.
The action took place just one day before the summer solstice — the longest day of the year — when thousands of people are expected to descend upon the historic monument.
English Heritage, the group that manages Stonehenge, said in a post on X that the site remains open. It called the incident “extremely upsetting” and said its curators were assessing the extent of any damage.
In its press release, Just Stop Oil said it wouldn’t be enough for the UK to stop any future oil and gas licenses, but rather urged the government to sign a legally binding treaty barring it from extracting and burning oil, gas and coal by the year 2030.
UK political leaders were quick to condemn the demonstration.
In a post on X, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said: “Just Stop Oil are a disgrace.”
Labour leader Keir Starmer, who is running against Sunak in the upcoming election, saidthe damage done to Stonehenge was “outrageous.” Starmer called Just Stop Oil “pathetic” and said those responsible for the action “must face the full force of the law.”
It’s the latest public protest initiated by activists with Just Stop Oil, whose members have also interrupted tennis matches at Wimbledon, disrupted the London pride parade and defacedclassic works of art.
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