Flowers for Minnetonka, MN

Say the name and people picture the lake — but the city of Minnetonka actually sits inland from most of the water, a big, wooded, affluent west suburb that took its name from the bay at its northern edge. What defines it on a delivery afternoon is not shoreline so much as trees and traffic: winding, canopy-covered residential streets around Glen Lake and Minnetonka Mills, the shopping-and-office weight of the Ridgedale district, and a heavy band of corporate campuses — Cargill, UnitedHealth Group, the Opus business park along Bren Road — strung between Highway 62 and I-394. That mix pulls florists in two directions at once. Half the work is corporate and quick: reception and front-desk bouquets to the office towers, congratulations and client flowers timed to a workday. The other half is residential and unhurried: anniversaries, sympathy pieces, and just-because arrangements out to the leafy blocks toward Gray's Bay and the Minnehaha Creek headwaters.

Other Minnesota cities.