Flowers for Columbia, ME

Columbia is a scattering of homes and blueberry barrens where Route 1 threads between Harrington and Cherryfield, about as Down East as Maine gets before the road runs out at Machias. There is no downtown grid here — deliveries follow the highway and the branch roads: Addison Road toward the coast, the Epping and Kennebec Road turns, the village cluster in neighboring Columbia Falls, and the long residential stretches where mailboxes sit a quarter mile apart. The Pleasant River drains the barrens toward Pleasant Bay, and in late summer the whole town turns rake-and-winnow busy for the wild blueberry harvest. A florist here plans around distance more than traffic; the reward is that most of Washington County's few shops know every turnoff by name.

Other Maine cities.