Flowers for Thomson, GA

Start with a common Thomson order and you understand the town: a customer three states away calls Richard's Flowers And Gifts wanting camellias delivered to a grandmother off Milledge Road before the afternoon's out. The camellia is not a coincidence — Thomson calls itself the Camellia City of the South, and the flower shows up in yard after yard and in half the sympathy work the shops handle each winter. The town grew up around the Georgia Railroad depot, still the anchor of downtown, and its calendar has two loud weekends: the Belle Meade Fox Hunt, when the horse country south of town fills with riders, and the Blind Willie McTell Blues Festival, which draws crowds to the fairgrounds every fall. Between them the orders run the way they do in any county seat — get-well flowers to Piedmont McDuffie on Gordon Street, anniversary roses out the farm roads toward Dearing, homecoming mums that empty the cooler in a week.

Other Georgia cities.