Flowers for Brattleboro, VT

Brattleboro is where three states almost touch — Vermont's southeast doorstep, wedged against the Connecticut River with New Hampshire on the far bank and Massachusetts a few minutes south down I-91. It wears its reputation as an arts town honestly: the neon of the restored Latchis Theatre over Main Street, the first-Friday gallery walk, the co-op and the used bookstores climbing Elliot and Canal streets. Flowers here follow that downtown grain. A weekday's orders lean local and personal — a birthday bouquet carried up a Canal Street walk-up, a get-well arrangement to Brattleboro Memorial Hospital on Belmont Avenue, an anniversary delivery to a house on the West River road, sympathy pieces staged for a service at one of the town's churches. The Retreat, the old behavioral-health campus north of the center, adds its own careful deliveries, each cleared with the front desk before it goes out.

Other Vermont cities.