06/09/2026
Reflections on a Porch Pot 🌸
Springtime has finally, gloriously arrived in Wisconsin — and with it comes one of my absolute favorite rituals: replacing the dried, faded evergreen branches of the holiday porch with the most beautiful, hope-filled flowering annuals of the new season. There is simply nothing like it.
As I worked my way through the planting this week, my mind floated back to my teenage years and my very first job at Roorbach’s Greenhouse and Flower Shop in Manitowoc. I can still picture the owner, Harry Roorbach, walking me slowly through those magnificent, humid green houses — row after glorious row of annuals stretching as far as I could see, waiting to grace the yards and porches of Manitowoc. Harry passed along every tip, every secret, every piece of hard-won wisdom as we watered and pinched the spent blooms from aisle after aisle of color. I did not know it then, but those quiet mornings were shaping everything.
Fast forward a few years, and I found myself the young, wide-eyed owner of the Flower Gallery in Manitowoc — a dream I could not quite believe was mine. As I tucked petunias into my pots this week, I thought about the thousands of people who walked through that door and trusted me with the most important moments of their lives. Oh, the stories. I could fill volumes. More than a thousand weddings — each one its own beautiful adventure. The most spectacular Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day deliveries. The shy, bashful teenagers who came in with their hands in their pockets and their hearts on their sleeves, placing their very first order for a corsage or boutonnière for their first high school prom. Every single one of them a privilege. Every single one a memory I carry with me still.
As I added the most dramatic, show-stopping red geraniums to the pot — those bold, unapologetic blooms that never, ever disappoint — I thought about the late May and early June cemetery visits that were such a sacred part of my work. Customers would trust me to do the summer plantings at the graves of their most cherished loved ones, and as I knelt in the grass and pressed each plant into the earth, I found myself thinking about the lives of the people resting there. The war heroes. The father taken too suddenly in an automobile accident. The young mother stolen far too soon by breast cancer, leaving behind children who still needed her. The grandmothers and grandfathers whose eyes absolutely sparkled when they bragged — as they always, always did — about every single accomplishment of their children and grandchildren. All of them honored. All of them remembered. All of them given one more season of beauty.
As I swept up the last of the potting soil and gave each container a long, deep drink of water, something settled over me that I can only describe as the most profound gratitude. My life as a florist has not simply been a career. It has been the extraordinary privilege of marking life’s most meaningful moments — the joyful and the heartbreaking, the ordinary Tuesday and the once-in-a-lifetime day — in flowers.
And it all started with Harry Roorbach, walking me through those aisles.
🌱 Want to learn my potting techniques and create your own pot full of wow-ness? I have shared all of my steps right here — [link to blog post]
💬 I would so love to hear about YOUR life’s experiences with flowers — the memories they hold, the moments they marked, the people they remind you of. Please share in the comments. These are the stories that matter most. 🌸
Diana Dreger Designs — dianadregerdesigns.com —
