Flower Garden: 52 open cards and a very deep search
Flower Garden shares one big feature with our home game, FreeCell Two Decks: nothing is hidden. Every card is face up from the first moment, and there is no stock. But where FreeCell Two Decks spreads 104 cards over ten columns and eight cells, Flower Garden uses a single 52-card deck: 36 cards in six "beds" of six, and 16 in a "bouquet" you can play from in any order.
Fewer cards does not mean an easier search. Given up to 200,000 positions per deal, our solver found a win in 43.3% of 2,000 deals (95% range 41.1%–45.5%), proved 5.35% impossible (4.45%–6.43%) and left 51.35% (49.2%–53.5%) undecided. So between 43.3% and 94.7% of deals can be won. The two-deck FreeCell solver, with a 150,000-position budget, did better on 104 cards: 88.0% solved (84.4%–90.8%, 400 deals). Flower Garden has no two-deck version here and we ran none.
At a glance: one open deck, measured
| Measure | Result | 95% range | Deals |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flower Garden (52 cards): solver found a win | 43.3% | 41.1–45.5% | 2,000 |
| Flower Garden: proven impossible | 5.35% | 4.45–6.43% | 2,000 |
| Flower Garden: undecided | 51.35% | 49.2–53.5% | 2,000 |
| FreeCell Two Decks (104 cards): solved | 88.0% | 84.4–90.8% | 400 |
| FreeCell (52 cards): solved | 99.7% | 99.5–99.8% | 10,000 |
| Flower Garden: Aces starting in the bouquet (of 4) | 1.26 | 1.23–1.30 | 2,000 |
All three games show every card, so these are verdicts a person could match with perfect planning. What makes Flower Garden hard to search is not deck size but the rules: any bouquet card can be played at any time and every bed card moves alone, which multiplies the possible move orders.
Deck size isn't the whole story
On this site, doubling the deck often means more room: twin cards and twin foundations. In FreeCell it also means much longer solutions (148.0 moves with two decks against 62.2 with one). Flower Garden shows that a single deck can be just as hard to plan when moves are one card at a time. We did not measure Flower Garden solution lengths, so we cannot compare them.
Flower Garden rules on this site
- Deck: one 52-card deck, all face up.
- Beds: six columns of six.
- Bouquet: the other 16 cards; any of them may be played at any time to a bed or a foundation.
- Foundations: four, one per suit, Ace to King.
- Building: down by one rank, any suit.
- Moving: one card at a time.
- Empty beds: any card.
- Stock: none.
Planning a single open deck
Keep bouquet cards in the bouquet
A bouquet card can never be covered. Once it goes into a bed, it can cover something. Play it only when it has a clear job.
One copy of each low card
With one deck there is just one 2 of hearts. If it is buried at the back of a bed, that bed decides your game. Plan backward from the buried low cards.
Starting Aces barely matter
The solver solved 44.2% of deals with two or more Aces in the bouquet (40.7–47.8%, 747 deals) and 42.8% with fewer (40.1–45.5%, 1,253 deals). The ranges overlap. Judge a deal by how deep the low cards sit, not by its Aces.
Use an empty bed, then free it again
Any card fills a gap, so an empty bed is your best tool. Reorder through it and clear it again.
Undo is free research
With nothing hidden, trying a line and rewinding costs nothing.
Playing on freecell-two-decks.com
Flower Garden is free in any current browser on computer, tablet or phone, with no account or download. Hint, unlimited Undo, Restart and Auto Play are included, plus zoom, fullscreen, drag or tap moves, a counter for wins, time and moves, and sound and table-color settings.
How the figures were made
The freecell-two-decks.com team ran this study in September 2026 on this site's Flower Garden rules.
- Rules from the code: six beds of six, a 16-card bouquet always available, any-suit building, single-card moves, any card in a gap, no stock.
- A Python 3.11 program, standard library only.
- Deals 1 to 2,000 from fixed seeds.
- A best-first solver with up to 200,000 positions per deal, sending cards home automatically only when that can never hurt.
- Every deal sorted into won, proven impossible or undecided.
- No published figure and no two-deck version. Blake and Gent (2026) do not cover Flower Garden.
- 95% ranges: Wilson score intervals, and a normal interval for the Ace average.
Claude, an AI assistant by Anthropic, helped write and review the code and draft this page. Every figure comes from running the code, and the team checked them.
Flower Garden questions
Is it mostly luck?
Very little: only 5.35% of deals were proven impossible.
Why a range and not one number?
Because the solver could not settle over half the deals. The honest answer is 43.3% to 94.7%.
Is it harder than FreeCell Two Decks?
For our solver, yes: it settled far fewer Flower Garden deals, even with a bigger budget.
What next?
Try FreeCell Two Decks for 104 open cards, or one-deck FreeCell. All games are on the games page.
By Admin, freecell-two-decks.com (Forty Media). Research run September 2026.