The Flower Garden is an old patience or

card solitaire Patience (Europe), card solitaire or solitaire (US/Canada), is a genre of card games whose common feature is that the aim is to arrange the cards in some systematic order or, in a few cases, to pair them off in order to discard them. Most are inte ...

using a single deck of 52

playing card A playing card is a piece of specially prepared card stock, heavy paper, thin cardboard, plastic-coated paper, cotton-paper blend, or thin plastic that is marked with distinguishing motifs. Often the front (face) and back of each card has a fi ...

s, and is based on an old Japanese game. It was first called Le Parterre, but is also known under the names The Bouquet and The Garden. The terms used in this game are related to

gardening Gardening is the practice of growing and cultivating plants as part of horticulture. In gardens, ornamental plants are often grown for their flowers, foliage, or overall appearance; useful plants, such as root vegetables, leaf vegetables, fruits ...

. Some skill is needed to successfully complete the game, and skilful players can win more than 20% of the time.

Rules

Thirty-six cards are dealt in to six columns, each containing six cards. The columns are called the "

flower A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants (plants of the division Angiospermae). The biological function of a flower is to facilitate reproduction, usually by providing a mechani ...

beds" and the entire tableau is sometimes called "the

garden A garden is a planned space, usually outdoors, set aside for the cultivation, display, and enjoyment of plants and other forms of nature. The single feature identifying even the wildest wild garden is ''control''. The garden can incorporate both ...

." The sixteen leftover cards become the reserve, or "the bouquet." Some sources instead refer to this reserve as the "seeds", and the built-up foundations as the "bouquets"."Flower Garden" (p.138) in ''The Playing Card Kit'' by Richard Craze, Simon & Schuster, 1995. The top cards of each flower-bed and all of the cards in the bouquet are available for play. Cards can only be moved one at a time and can be built either on the foundations or on the other flower beds. The foundations are built up by suit, from Ace to King (a general idea of the game is to release the aces first). The cards in the garden, on the other hand, can be built down regardless of suit and any empty flower bed can be filled with any card. The cards in the bouquet can be used to aid in building, be put into the foundations, or fill an empty flower bed. The game is won when all cards end up in the foundations.

Variations

An slightly easier variant of Flower Garden uses a tableau with seven columns of only five cards each, and a reserve of 17 cards. Other variations include Wildflower (allows sequences to be moved), Brigade, and

Stonewall Stonewall or Stone wall may refer to: * Stone wall, a kind of masonry construction * Stonewalling, engaging in uncooperative or delaying tactics * Stonewall riots, a 1969 turning point for the modern LGBTQ rights movement in Greenwich Village, Ne ...

Rules

Variations

References

See also