In her book, Flower Confidential
Some people are already on the local-flower bandwagon. Tara Kolla, of Silver Lake Farms, for example. She started an organic cut-flower business on the grounds of her 1/2 acre property in the Silver Lake area of Los Angeles. Unfortunately, after telling Tara that it was legal, and after she grew and sold her flowers at local farmer’s markets for six years (!!!), the city of Los Angeles decided it was illegal to grow flowers in your backyard and sell them.
If you’d like to help Tara and other small LA flower farmers, consider logging on to Urban Farming Advocates. They detail a new law that would support small farmers in LA who would like to grow flowers, fruits, and nuts for sale at farmer’s markets. You may have noticed that I did not mention anything about vegetables. That’s not an accident. It is perfectly legal to grow vegetables in your LA backyard for the purposes of selling them. But for some asinine reason, flowers, fruits, and nuts are a no-go.
In the meantime, here are four of Tara’s favorite, easy-to-grow flowers perfect for your own patio or balcony cutting garden.
- Poppy Flowered Anemone – This charming single flower has clear reds, blues, and whites that really shine in spring. They make great companions for sweet peas.
- Ranunculus – The super-double versions of this flower look like mini peonies, great if you live in a climate that is too warm for those finicky flowers. They come in a wide variety of deep, bright colors.
- Sunflowers – Really easy to grow, sunflowers are as cheerful and happy as it comes. They’re also pretty expensive in flower shops, but exceedingly cheap to grow yourself.
- Sweet Peas – Scented sweet peas are one of the most beautiful scents, bar-none. Check out Botanical Interests and Renee’s Garden, both have compact varieties perfect for tiny patios and balconies.
If you need even more inspiration, last year I wrote a series of posts about growing a containerized cutting garden. Everything from planning a cutting garden, tips and tricks for success, and how to get the most out of a cutting garden. Even if you plan on focusing most of your efforts on vegetables, you still need some flowers for the dinner table, right? Don’t blow your budget or increase your carbon foot print by purchasing imports.
Photo credit: jhhymas
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Illegal? That’s completely bizarre. Trader Joe’s in my neighborhood tends to have a lot of California grown flowers, all labeled as such. For a rather large chain, they tend to source as much locally as possible it seems. (As an example, they will soon have daffodils and jonquils in bud, which they sell in bunches out of water. You take them home, cut the stem, place in a glass of water and viola! instant spring. These are grown in Humboldt County.)
Shari–The sticking point is that the flowers are being grown on a residential property. In LA it is legal to sell vegetables grown in your backyard, but not flowers.
Thanks for bringing this up! Our CSA does flowers as part of the pick-your-own offerings — they plant easy, tough as nails stuff (cleome, nasturtiums, marigolds, zinnias…) and just let it fend for itself. Brings the beneficial insects & pollinators, draws away some nuisance bugs, and beautifies our tables. The same palette of easy annuals would work in containers or guerrilla-style in tree wells, cracked pavement, etc.
I wonder if that is true of the flowers for sale in stores in Canada.
In my experience sunflowers are taller than me , I’m 5’4″, Their flowers are very heavy and they need to be staked. You will need a very big pot.
Carolyn–I am totally loving the idea of a guerilla cutting garden!
Melanie–Not all sunflowers are that tall!
Cut flowers have been forbidden in my house for many many years UNLESS I grew it myself. Needless to say I usually never have cut flowers on my kitchen table.
Also, lets not forget all cut flowers go through Holland first, even if they were grown in another country.
I met Tara a while back and she breifly mentioned her troubles with the City of Los Angeles. I was floored by the moronic law.
PS, I am considering growing flowers. Did hell freeze over?
Adriana–I don’t think Hell has frozen over. Or, if it has, I missed the memo. Flowers attract good guys into your vegetable garden, and marigolds kill nematodes that feed on tomato roots. Seems perfectly logical to me to grow flowers!
I love flowers as if gives peace . And got happy to go through it. I became speechless for sometime.
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