Eastern Market’s Annual Flower Day

By Laura Fawaz
TMO Contributing Writer

Photo credit: Laura Fawaz

Detroit, MI–The Sunday after Mother’s Day is a day when Detroit’s Eastern Market is transformed into a colorful array of flowers, food and clothes.

2015 was the 49th annual Flower Day. When driving to the Eastern Market for the flower day, you’ll be stopped by the large crowds of people walking to their cars with wagons full of beautiful annuals, perennials, herbs, shrubs, and trees. From begonias, to marigold flats, six-foot dahlias, fragrant jasmine, daisies, and succulents, most anyone can find all that their looking for to fill their garden needs. The 15 acres of the Eastern Market are filled with all of these at low prices, and with most vendors who are willing to haggle for multiple purchases. This one-day brings in thousands of shoppers and is the largest, outdoor flower market in the country.

Be prepared to maneuver through the narrow aisles of the market though, they are definitely not designed the same way as your average grocery store. This is old school shopping at good prices, but does require some thoughtfulness in regards to scheming through the people, the wagons, the flowers, and the tall carts of back stock herbs and vegetables. The one-day event went from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., though there were people parked, lined up and ready by 4 a.m. to get their first pick on stock.

As the wind and the temperatures rose, the shoppers still kept coming, pushing their wagons and carts. The estimated almost 250,000 Metro-Detroiters in attendance came to spruce up their yards and to buy them directly from the growers. Vendors from the Metropolitan Detroit Flower Growers Association (MDFGA) members arrive every year from Michigan, Ontario and neighboring states to share 15 acres of the heartiest varieties for this region, and they’re ready to answer questions about how to help them thrive, as well as to give expert tips that pertain to your specific garden needs.

The myth goes that the annual Flower Day originated from the psychedelic ‘60s and the flower power. Eastern Market’s first official Flower Day began in 1960’s, and then, flowers were everywhere. Flowers were in people’s hair, their clothes, and painted on their cars. And Southeastern Michigan was the country’s largest producer of bedding flowers, though two-thirds of that flower crops was shipped out of state, at least until the MDFGA formed and kept more flowers local, and moved to the Michigan State Fairgrounds. In 1967, they expanded into Eastern Market to make room for thousands of the area’s most stunning flowers.

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