How an Urban Flower Farmer Spends Her Sundays in New York
On a quest for sunlight and soil, Christina Clum approached Brooklyn residents about growing flowers in their yards. It worked.
By Alyson Krueger
New York Times
July 31, 2020
Excerpt:
Three years ago, Christina Clum left the corporate world to become an urban flower farmer.
Her backyard in Kensington, Brooklyn, however, “is the size of a postage stamp,” she said. “And it doesn’t get good light.” So in February 2018, she put the word out to other Brooklyn residents about doing plantings in their yards. The exchange would be simple: They would get to enjoy the flowers, and then she would cut them and sell them through her company, Spry Flower Farm.
Ms. Clum, 51, settled on five yards. “I had certain criteria,” she said. “I didn’t want to have to walk through someone’s home, because it would be weird and invasive.” She needed sunlight and an outside water source. Ms. Clum also made it clear that she wasn’t a landscaper. “Some people still don’t get that,” she said.
“I have developed quite a fondness for my hosts and have attended barbecues and plays in which they are involved,” said Ms. Clum, who visits her hosts’ properties several times a week to dig up weeds, plant new seeds, and water the flowers, which she sells through a subscription service and to two stores. “I think it definitely takes a certain type of person to volunteer their yard and put their trust in strangers.”
Ms. Clum lives with her husband, Christopher Longworth, 51, who is an architectural metal fabricator; their daughter Cora, 15; a dog, Ida Mae; and three cats.
