When you first begin Flower Garden solitaire your screen may look like this:

There are a few other versions that may look different but the game is still played the same.

First you will need to find and retrieve all of your Aces.  As some of the Aces are behind some of the other cards they may be hard to get to since you can only move one card at a time. When you move a suit you do not need to worry about the colors, regardless of suit a card can be placed on any suited card.  You may not move a whole column at any time throughout this game, regardless of if you have it built in the correct order.

The game is called Flower Garden because the cards are meant to look like a bouquet.  Once you have your Aces in the foundations you can start to build the rest of your suited cards.  Only the top card in the columns can be moved so patience is needed when you play this game.  You can also pull suits from the column of cards underneath the foundations.

Continue to move the suits up in to the columns, double clicking on the card will send the suit you choose up to one of the columns.   Once a foundation has been cleared you can move an available King card.  Once you move a King to an empty column you can then build that foundation and also move cards up to the columns in order to win your game.

At this point you want to look through your stacks and see if you can start arranging the deck so you can empty a column.  You will see more than one of each card so this makes the game a little harder.  Once you find a card to move just click and drag it to the card you choose.  If it’s not the right card the game will throw the card back in to the deck and you’ll have to choose again.  Each time you click and drag a card the one underneath it will flip over showing a new card.  Once you get to the point where you can no longer make any moves click on the deck in the lower right hand corner.   Don’t be discouraged at this point, it seems that when the dealer’s deck throws up 10 more cards you’re at a loss but there is a way to win.

Once you click the card pile which is face down it will send up another 10 cards that will cover all your existing cards.  You will then have to click and drag the cards to usable columns.  Sometimes this can’t be done because there are no cards in the columns that follow with the ascending pattern you need.  Once you get to this point you will need to click on the deck again to send another 10 cards up.    Once you start to clear full decks they will be moved to the lower left hand corner.  Continue to try and build your suits so you can clear your decks.  If you can’t make any more moves you’ll need to choose another card from the dealer’s deck and continue to build.  You have 8 decks to build in the bottom left corner.  If you empty a column, decide wisely if you want to use a Black King or a Red King depending on what cards you have available in the other decks.  Once you move that King there you cannot move it back. You can see those cards in the bottom left corner.

After you start to build your decks and they are moved to the bottom of your screen, it becomes easier to play the game.  Once you start to build your decks remember that you can still hit a wall and have to restart your game.  You cannot deal cards from the deck if there are any empty columns either.  Not all games are solvable but if you play enough you’ll get the hang of it and you’ll come up with strategies that work for you.  Once you’ve cleared all the decks you’ve won!!

You are dealt seven cards horizontally with the card to the far left facing up you will want to find an Ace card to put up in the first empty slot.  The next card you want to find will have to be the opposite color and be a 2 card, following that card will be 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, J, Q, and then K.  You will still have the other stacks that you can use to hold cards while you search or what you need.  Try to find all the Ace cards first.   Once you have found a few Aces the screen will look like this:

Once a column has been cleared you can click and drag a stack to an empty column.  It can only be a King card though.   If you are unable to make a move with the cards in the stacks you can flip a card from the stack in the upper left corner.  You will get 1 cards at a time.

Continue to flip through the cards until you find a card you can use to build from the Aces.  Remember you may not find any cards you can use which means you can no longer continue with the game.  Once you start to stack the cards your screen should start to look like this:

Once you start to start to uncover the cards you need your game will become easier to play.  Once you’ve found all the cards you need you will no longer get any cards from the deck to choose from and you’re pretty sure to win at this point.  But remember, you may need that one card that you are unable to get to!

Now that you’ve used all the cards in your deck all you need to do is double click on the appropriate card and start stacking all the cards up in the columns in the upper right part of your screen:

You WIN!

When you first start your game you want to try and find as many Ace cards as you can, usually the first one can be hard to find and sometimes it’s one of the first cards you see.

Once you find an ACE card you can double click it and it will be sent up to one of the 4 columns in the upper right hand corner:

Once you find an Ace you can start building your stacks.  (Remember they have to be in opposite colors and ascending from the Ace card to the King card.)

You can start adding cards in each column as well, you can click and drag stacks to other columns as long as they are in the correct order and color.

Even though you can stack some columns with the correct cards you may get stumped.  Sometimes there are no available moves left and you will have to restart your game.

You can also go through the deal stack in the upper left hand corner to try and find cards to use.

When you have gathered most of the Aces and are able to add cards to the stacks in the upper right corner the game will become easier to win.

You will soon run out of cards from the deal stack and then piling your stacks up will be a breeze.

Once you have been dealt all the cards you can double click the cards and add them to the column in the upper right hand corner.  Make sure you click each card in the right order.

Once they are all added you have aced the game!

When you begin your screen may look like this.  You want to start building foundations in order of suit and rank but you can only move one card at a time.  This game requires skill and patience.  It is not easily won.

When moving a suited card you can only move it the same suited card.  You must move the same colored suited card as well.  If you can no longer make any plays you can re-deal your cards into sets of 4.   You will find that you will use the stock to reshuffle your cards very often. You can reshuffle the cards by clicking on the stack in the stop left corner.

When you find a card that you are able to move you may find that there is a card underneath that can be used BUT cannot be moved due to you can only move one card at a time.  For instance, you could have 3 movable cards:  a 3, 4 and 5 but when you move the 3 you find a 6 card that you can no longer use since you have moved your cards to cover the 5 suit.  At that point you can try and continue to play if you have some other cards to move or you will have to re-shuffle your cards again.

Continue to uncover the cards and you will soon be able to move suited cards up to their foundations.

You will soon build your foundations and there will be empty spaces within your columns.  You may not place cards there which makes the game a little bit harder to play but that is where the skill comes in to play.

At this point you have pretty much aced the game.  Continue to uncover your cards and before you know it you have won!

In this version of solitaire you can place the same color card on top of another.  For example you may place a red Queen on top of a red King. You may only move one card at a time rather than moving a column as you would in traditional solitaire. (Use caution when choosing which cards to move as after you have moved you are unable to move that card back.)

When you start the screen will look like this:

Try and find all your Aces and move them to the right hand columns. As you come upon cards that you can move to their respective foundations on the right, you can simply click that card and it will automatically be moved to the correct pile on the right hand side.

Remember you can move a black suited card to another black suited card as same color suited cards are not an issue with this game.  Keep in mind that you can only move one card at a time rather than a column of cards. Take time to look at your deck.  You want to make sure any card you move to get to an Ace or a card you need will not end the game for you.  If there is an empty column you are unable to move any cards there, such as in the original solitaire game.

Even though you have all your Aces moved and cards are available to move you still may be stuck:

If you run out of suits to move you may have to start over again until you can get all the cards moved. Try and build up each column as much as possible using the King card. As you dwindle down your cards you will be able to get through the game quicker and all the moves will become easier.  This game takes some skill and a lot of patience.   Congratulations, you’ve won!

·         Once the 3 of diamonds is in the foundation stack, you can also move the 8 of diamonds to the stack.

·         Once you have no more moves, click on the deal stack to get a new batch of cards.

Continue to eliminate cards of the same suit from lowest to highest rank, keep in mind that you can’t eliminate the Aces.

·         If you have an empty column, you can move any top card to that column provided the move can be made.

·         The best move to make is to get an Ace card to the top of the column.

·         You can only move the Ace card if it is sitting on top of the column, not placed underneath another card.

·         Remember, the object of the game is to move all cards EXCEPT the Aces to the foundation pile.

·         The game is over and you have won if you can get all cards to the foundation pile and have the remaining 4 aces sitting in each column.

·         There is no re-deal in this game, once you have gone through your initial stack of cards, you must play with what you have.

·         You lose if you have more than the 4 Aces remaining on the table.