There are between 600-700 flower shops in Paris and each has their own personality and beautiful displays. When you visit a French friend, it is a tradition to show up with a bouquet of flowers (if you bring a bottle of wine, they may be insulted that you thought theirs wasn’t good enough or that you suspected you wouldn’t be offered any!).These are the tulips that I took to Rolinka’s. The young lady at the flower shop took s
o much care in wrapping and decorating the bouquet before I left her shop. She used three different colors of paper, tied the stems with a thin twine, and used a leaf for futher decoration when she stapled the package at the base of the petals. 
For several blocks along the quai de la Megisserie above the Seine across from the Conciergerie (Right Bank), there’s a string of lively garden and pet shops. On sunny days, many people shop for plants, trees, and lawn ornaments—although very few people have any place outside to display a troll or an alligator in their yard! (They do like their window boxes though since they don't have any lawn or garden.) During the two-week winter school break, the pet stores were full of children dreaming about or picking out their new dog, turtle, rabbit, or canary.
Also notable is that there are over 475,000 trees in the city (including 300,000 in the two woods around Paris, Boulogne and Vincennes). The annual budget to care for them is eight million euros!
