1959
America was blooming again, in chrome and neon, not roses. Downtown Evansville was a grid of glass storefronts and clean sidewalks, and the Swanson name had outgrown the family shop.
Now, it was a company.
Swanson Floral Supply Co.
Marianne’s sons had turned their grandmother’s legacy into a quickly expanding business. They sold fertilizers, greenhouse equipment, soil enhancers, all under the promise of “growth guaranteed.” Across the Midwest, florists swore by the Swanson method: a secret mixture of organic matter, pH balance, and “rare mineral infusions.” The advertisements showed smiling housewives holding peach-colored carnations under the words:
“It’s Good to Grow with Swanson.”
No one asked about the source of the formula. The ingredients were labeled “proprietary.”
In truth, the family kept a single vial in a locked cabinet, thick, brown, and faintly luminescent. The label had long since faded, but family legend said the mixture came from Vera’s final harvest at Crimson’s Orchard. Once a year, under a sliver moon, a Swanson heir would take the vial from its shelf and pour a few drops into a new batch. Always the same words, whispered like prayer:
“Good to grow.”
That year, one of the family’s younger heirs, a chemist, named Ellis Swanson, began asking questions. He was a quiet, bookish sort, obsessed with genealogy. He traced the family records back through ledgers, diaries, and faded photographs until he reached the year 1910. That’s when he found the missing pages, entries torn neatly from Vera’s earliest ledger, replaced with pressed petals of a strange, brown flower no one could identify.
He took all of his findings with him to the orchard site, now little more than dirt and trees swallowed by vines. But the ground there still pulsed faintly when disturbed. He collected a sample of the soil and sealed it in a jar. He intended on sending it to the university in Bloomington for analysis.
Three days later, his car was found abandoned thirty miles out of town, near the old orchard road. The soil was not listed in any official reports.
When the family gathered to discuss his disappearance, Marianne, now an old woman in widow’s black, sat silently, hands folded. Finally, she said only:
“He shouldn’t have gone digging.”
That autumn, the company rebranded its premium line of products.
They called it Shades of Brun.
And its slogan, printed in gold on every label, read:
“Rooted in tradition.”
Swanson’s Flower Shop
- Chapter I: Shades of Blauw
- Chapter I (continued): Shades of Blauw
- Chapter I (final): Shades of Blauw
- Chapter II: Shades of Brzoskwinia
- Chapter III: Shades of Natura
- Chapter IV: Shades of Violaceous
- Chapter V: Shades of La Couleur Bleue
- Chapter VI: Shades of Brun
- Chapter VII: Shades of Noire
- Epilogue: The Geddes Report