Tha Flower Factory helps brighten east Baltimore neighborhood

WBAL TV 11 News
Jennifer Franciotti
August 18, 2016

Click here to see the video.

BALTIMORE —A field of sunflowers is eye catching, no matter where they are but especially in an east Baltimore neighborhood surrounded by vacant houses.

The sunflowers are part of a new urban farm called Tha Flower Factory.

“They’re really just dramatic,” Walker Marsh, of Tha Flower Factory, said. “I like that dramatic effect where you drive by and say, ‘All those dag gone sunflowers. That’s really cool.’”

In the heart of east Baltimore’s Broadway East neighborhood, an urban flower farm is in bloom. The half-acre garden is thriving even as it is surrounded by vacant homes and growing in ground where other vacant properties once stood.

“There’s still whole foundations out here,” Marsh said. “You dig a little then hit a brick, hit a rock.”

Marsh said that is OK since he loves the hard work. Through Civic Works and the mayor’s Growing Green Initiative, Marsh, a former Cylburn horticulture assistant, won a grant to start Tha Flower Factory.

“It’s been wonderful to see the impact that it’s had on the community and to just have neighbors walking by saying thank you,” Chrissy Goldberg, Civic Works Food and Farm Director, said.

Resident Nathaniel Jackson said Tha Flower Factory is a wonderful idea.

“I think it gives hope to the community,” Jackson said. “It’s a thing of beauty in a desolate area.”

Dealing with vacant properties is a problem common to many Baltimore neighborhoods. But in this community something new is taking root.

“It is what it is,” Marsh said. “You just have to see the opportunity in everything. That’s what I did. I didn’t see it as a problem.”

Marsh said he is hoping to expand his garden into other vacant lots. He’s started his own fundraising website.

For more information on Tha Flower Factory, tap here.