HELENA — Just in time for Easter, the Helena Dirty Knees Flower Cart is filled with tulips, and the woman who grows them was inspired by a dark time to bring light to the community.

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On some Friday mornings, Yvonne LaFromboise rolls her flower cart to the corner of Joslyn and Cannon Streets. 



The flowers that fill it are all grown here in her basement.

"I basically inherited it," said LaFromboise, "My mother was a gardener and loved flowers. My great-grandmother loved flowers." 



She is now passing her green thumb to her eight-year-old granddaughter Emma, who helps with the soil-forcing process.

Soil-forcing tricks plants or flowers to grow outside of their season – keeping them in cool, dark conditions for the first few weeks of their growth and then bringing them into warm, bright conditions. 



LaFromboise said, "I learned it online. I started three years ago to learn how to winter harvest tulips." 



The flower cart started in the thick of the COVID-19 pandemic when she needed an escape from her job as a healthcare worker.

"It was a really hard period of time," said LaFromboise, "The garden was just a way for me to release and be with the birds, the bugs, the family." 



Now, five years after it began, the flower cart has held thousands of flowers purchased by strangers and neighbors.



It is not staffed, and LaFromboise relies on people's honesty to pay for what they take.

She says she expects the next time the cart will be open is in late May or June, and she will post on Helena Facebook groups and Nextdoor when that time comes.