(FAIRHOPE, Ala.) - You don't have to be able to grow them to love them.
And tourists notice them immediately, even on their first visit.
And they are everywhere.
They're hanging down and reaching up.
They're even springing from the trash cans.
The flowers of Fairhope delight and inspire all of those who see them, and always evoke the same response: Why can't I do this at home?
So how do you think all of that happens?
Someone comes in in the middle of the night and pulls all of the old plants, puts the new ones in and they magically appear?
Well, that's exactly what happens.
"It's part of our trademark," said assistant superintendent of public works Arthur Bosarge. "Everybody knows Fairhope by the flowers. We grow anywhere from poinsettias to tulips, to all your springs flowers."
That's right, he said GROW.
The city of Fairhope makes this happen, from sprig to blossom.
"I have ten greenhouses," he said, proudly. "I have eight guys on a crew and one guy who is mainly the gardener."
The process doesn't start with seeds, but that's pretty close.
"We get them in as a plug," Bosarge said, "and we grow them up. Certain flowers it takes five weeks, some it takes eight weeks, and we grow them to maturity in a pot and then we bring them and put them in."
And when the flowers get big and beautiful, a sort of assembly line kicks in, said Bosrage.
"We have a three man crew on three different trucks and each one has a different kind of flower and puts in a different kind of flower."
The entire downtown can be changed out in a week.
But it doesn't end there.
The beauties, as well as the roses at the pier, are treated like royalty.
Weeds are banished.
Faded blossoms are plucked.
The reward?
The pleasure of you company and compliments!
And those, like the blossoms, are plentiful.
