Mexico City's floating gardens in peril

Cassandra Garduno cuts Mexican marigold flowers known as cempasuchil she grew in her floating garden in the Xochimilco borough of Mexico City, Oct. 29, 2024. FILE - Amateur soccer players and families travel in a traditional canoe in the Xochimilco borough of Mexico City, on Oct. 20, 2024.

Cassandra Garduño squinted in the sunlight, her pink boots smudged by dirt as she gazed out over her family's chinampa — one of the islands first built up by the Aztecs with fertile mud from the bottom of a lake that, later drained, would one day become Mexico City.