‘All the neighbors know who she is’: How one woman built a flower farm across eight yards in LA
“It’s so wonderful to see flowers growing outside my window,” he said from his wheelchair. “I love seeing them. They smell so good.”
By Lisa Boone
LA Times
July 10, 2023
Excerpt:
SAN DIEGO —
Rachel Nafis, waist-deep in corncockles, cut the blush-colored flowers growing in her neighbor’s yard as her eyes wandered to the front door.
“I hope Tom comes outside to say hello,” she said as she placed the cut stems in a bucket of water.
Soon, a smile crept across her face as Tom Weaver opened the door and wheeled himself onto the porch.
“It’s so wonderful to see flowers growing outside my window,” he said from his wheelchair. “I love seeing them. They smell so good.”
For three years, Nafis, a one-woman florist, has grown sunflowers, dahlias and corncockles outside Weaver’s home, one of eight neighbors who have donated their yards to Psalter Farm Flowers, a loose collective of cutting gardens that is a draw with San Diego flower shops, event florists and bouquet lovers.
Not surprisingly, the flowers burst out of yards in various states of bloom due to the seasons. Around the corner from her home base, across the street from Webster Elementary School in City Heights, yellow and pink strawflowers and delicate blue scabiosa pincushions grow tall in raised beds.
A quarter mile in the other direction, pink bellflowers and the conclusion of fragrant sweet peas grow in neat rows behind the rental home of Sophie Thompson.
