Flowers for Mesa, AZ

Mesa is the quiet giant of the East Valley — bigger than Miami or Atlanta by headcount, but laid out in mile-square blocks so plain that the flowers do the announcing. The everyday rhythm here is residential: birthday roses to a west-Mesa apartment off Alma School, an anniversary arrangement to a Las Sendas home tucked under the Red Mountain ridge, a get-well basket rolling into Banner Desert on Dobson where much of the East Valley goes to heal. Twice a year the pattern breaks. Cubs spring training packs Sloan Park with visitors from February into March, and graduation season at Mesa Community College and the downtown high schools clears the coolers of ribbon and mums. The rest of the calendar runs on sympathy work for the city's older neighborhoods and steady congratulations orders around Falcon Field and the Superstition Springs corridor.

Other Arizona cities.