Flower Day fills Eastern Market with 80 growers and a city of gardeners

Detroit's 58th annual Flower Day ran from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday, May 18, at Eastern Market, drawing more than 80 growers across five sheds, according to the organizers and WXYZ. Admission was free.

The event is run by the Metro Detroit Flower Growers Association, which brings vendors in from across the Midwest. The format has held since 1967: once a year, on the first Sunday after Mother's Day, growers haul plants into the market sheds and the city gets its unofficial start to summer. The association calls it one of the largest flower events in the country.

The sheds carried the full range of spring planting, from impatiens, geraniums, and tomato starts to specialty hostas and shrubs that take a few years to fill in. Part of the tradition is the haul itself. Shoppers turn up early with wagons, garden carts, and rolling totes, and load them down for the trip home.

One regular, Hester Shoats, told WXYZ she was up at "5 o'clock in the morning" for it, and that this year her theme was yellow. The day runs on that kind of personal ritual rather than any official program. There are no headliners and no corporate stages, just dozens of growers, a few thousand gardeners, and a market block's worth of plants moving out over a ten-hour window.

This year's official Flower Day poster was designed by Detroit visual artist Allison Sims. The first 50 prints were hand-signed and sold for $50, with the rest priced at $25, at the merchandise booth outside Shed 3. Merchandise continued at the Saturday Markets through the season while supplies lasted.

Eastern Market sits at 2934 Russell Street. Flower Day returns the first Sunday after Mother's Day each year.