Marisa Mender-Franklin poses for a picture on Thursday, July 23, 2026, in one of the properties that she crowdsourced for free to plant flowers for her florist shop in Memphis, Tenn. (AP Photo\/Kristin M. Hall)<\/small><\/p>\n
2026-08-18T04:04:45Z<\/p>\n
When Marisa Mender-Franklin walks through any of the nine flower farms she runs in Memphis, Tennessee, her first thoughts are of gratitude. Partly for the flowers and the bees, but mostly for the support of her neighbors.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s because members of her local Facebook Buy Nothing group shared their unused yards and gardens with her, allowing her to achieve her dream of owning a flower shop and working as an urban flower farmer<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n \u201cNone of this would be possible without an immensely supportive community,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n In 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Mender-Franklin was a teacher planning her wedding. <\/p>\n \u201cI thought it would be fun to grow and design my own wedding flowers,\u201d she said. So, the lifelong gardener planted \u201cevery square inch\u201d of the tiny yard in front of her rental home with seeds and added pots along the walkway and on the porch.<\/p>\n The experience fortified her lifelong dream of working with flowers, she said, \u201cbut I didn\u2019t own land or have a path to owning land.\u201d<\/p>\n As a member of the Buy Nothing group, she had noticed members offering unwanted furniture, household goods and other items free to people who needed them<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n \u201cSomebody once posted looking for a French horn for their kid, and within six hours, they had one,\u201d she said. \u201cIf the group can do that,\u201d she reasoned, \u201cthen certainly there\u2019s someone who has a garden they can\u2019t use and would let me grow flowers there.\u201d<\/p>\n In her post, she expressed her desire to grow and sell flowers, and promised to be a good tenant and provide the owner with weekly bouquets. \u201cWithin 5 minutes, my phone started pinging like crazy,\u201d she said. Within a week, she had received 40 offers of free places to grow flowers.<\/p>\nHer post read, \u2018Flowers in need of a garden\u2019<\/h2>\n