“A Year After Houston’s Flower Man Died, His House Will Join Him in the Great Beyond” by John Lomax

In retrospect, it seems inevitable that the Flower Man House in Houston’s Third Ward could not live on beyond its creator, the late Cleveland Turner.

For years, Turner was a fixture of the neighborhood, seen riding his bike every day, foraging for cast-off flowers, misfit toys, and other brightly-colored urban detritus to decorate his home, 2305 Francis St., the third location of Turner’s decades-long, ever-evolving masterpiece of African-American yard show art. But when the Flower Man, as Turner was known, fell ill with stomach cancer, the house ailed as visibly as he did.