JUNE 28, 1900. 



The Weekly Florists^ Review* 



127 



(•^.d 



|. 



THE RETAIL 



FLORIST 



■^r»)-^ 



Shower Bouquets. 



A Cairo, Illinois, florist wants us to 

 tell him how to make a "shower 

 bouquet" of sweet peas. The flowers to 

 be used in a shower bouquet, or for 

 that matter in any form of hand 

 bunch, should be the finest and fresh- 

 est obtainable. Make sure there are 

 none better on the market. Select the 

 flowers with the longest stems and if 

 possible a few tips of foliage with 

 buds on; put them loosely in water for 

 a few hours before using. The flowers 

 should be kept cool and dry; don't 

 sprinkle them for when wet they lose 

 their fragrance or quickly decay. 



We presume this particular bouquet 

 is for a brid«, in which case white will 

 be the only color looked for; anyhow 

 under every circumstance one color 

 only is permissible in a hand bouquet. 

 The idea of the shower bouquet is to 

 create the impression of a loose ar- 

 rangement with some of the flowers 

 falling down; to call it a shower of 

 flowers is a little too romantic. We 

 have seldom seen this form of design 

 properly done, though you will find 

 each artist has a different idea of how 

 it should be made up. Our idea of all 

 hand bouquets is that they should be 

 light and graceful, and in order to 

 make them so the greatest care is 

 necessary in the stemming as well as 

 in the selection of the materials. 



But let us start on our "shower 

 bouquet." We select two or three dozen 

 of the best flowers and put them aside 

 for the ribbon work. We first stem 

 up our greens for packing and fringe. 

 The ferns we use have been steeped 

 overhead in water for an hour or two. 

 We prefer Asparagus tenuissimus for 

 packing greens in this case because it 

 is the lightest; Asparagus Sprengeri 

 is the next best and smilax as a sub- 

 stitute for that. Asparagus plumosus 

 is too dull and clumsy. 



Cut your greens in from three to four 

 inch lengths, but use a knife instead 

 of shears. The greens should not be 

 clipped off evenly; have the tops as 

 irregular and natural as possible. You 

 know the object of putting green 

 among flowers iu a bouquet is to keep 

 them in place, and the greens should 

 scarcely be seen, therefore we need 

 only a short, strong wire; usually a 

 twelve-inch length of No. 21 wire 

 doubled back is sufficient for the 

 greens. A finer wire, say No. 23, is 

 better for adiantum. We prefer to use 

 light green Adiantum Farleyense for 

 the finishing fringe, but often It Is 

 Impossible to procure It and Ifj that 



case A. cuneatum or any of the fine- 

 leaved adiantums will do. You will 

 require two wires on the ferns because 

 they have to extend a greater length 

 and often have to support a flower or 

 two; but be careful to have your ferns 

 wired so they face one way ; two of the 

 fronds are usually wired together and 

 the length of the fronds can be from 

 tour to six inches. 



Now we start on the flowers. If we 

 are compelled to use some poor blooms 

 we stem them short; for the average 

 flowers we put three or four sprays 

 together, not so they are even at the 

 top, but loose and irregular; wire 

 them close to the bottom in order that 

 they will stay so. One wire is suf- 

 ficient for the majority of this work if 

 the flower stems are long. A few 

 dozen will need double wires in order 

 to make them stand up prominently. 



Stemming. 



A great deal depends on the stem- 

 ming for a bouquet. Very few artists 

 will permit anyone else to prepare 

 materials for them; the whole of the 

 stock must be carefully attended to; 

 an extra wire may be wanted on a 

 flower or piece of green, but nothing 

 must be bunchy or clumsy. There is 

 no set rule on wiring. The average 

 florist uses too much wire and in con- 

 sequence their bouquets are either too 

 stiff or heavy. 



Flower stems or green cannot be 

 allowed in the handle of such a bou- 

 quet as we are discussing; it is ab- 

 solutely necessary to wire everything 

 because the handle should be very 

 thin, never above one or one and a 

 quarter inches in diameter, even for 

 a large sized bouquet. 



Before starting to "make up" we 

 have everything neatly arranged on 

 damp wax or tissue paper before us 

 on the counter, the short and poor 

 stuff separated from the finer. Green 

 silkaline cord is best to use for tying, 

 but we've often had trouble with 

 highly glazed thread; it slips oft the 

 wire. A rough Irish flax thread is of- 

 ten preferable, but be sure it is thin 

 and very strong. Put the spool in a 

 vase or pocket beneath you where it 

 will unwind freely. 



We start a bouquet by first a piece 

 of green; place on each side of it two 

 sprays of the finest flowers, twist the 

 cord very tightly around them and 

 continue on, putting on an average 

 of three pieces of green to every six 

 clusters of flowers. You will require 

 less green in the center of the bou- 

 quet than half way down or the fin- 



ishing. This point be careful to cov- 

 er. A bouquet of sweet peas should 

 be light and graceful; by carefully 

 wiring the flowers you will be able to 

 hide the green without making the 

 fiowers look stiff or too massive. Have 

 some flowers lower than others and 

 yet retain the outer shape of the bou- 

 quet; it requires some ability to do 

 this, but care in the start will help 

 the novice. 



The Ideal Bouquet. 



The ideal bouquet should be a half 

 globe in shape; not a formally-every- 

 flower-face-to-face compact affair, but 

 a light and airy arrangement with the 

 top flowers forming the even contour 

 One or two delicate tips of their own 

 foliage and a bud or two will be the 

 best and sufficient greens to be seen 

 beside that of the fringe. 



The size of the bouquet depends 

 much on the size and strength of the 

 girl who is to carry it. The average 

 one is about 10 to 12 inches in diam- 

 eter and from 6% to 7% inches in 

 height, the handle 41/2 inches long by 

 1 1-4 inches thickness, and tapering to 

 a point. The fringe of adiantum 

 should not be too prominent, neither 

 dense nor too far out; it should be 

 used as a mere finishing margin, the 

 fronds extending no further than an 

 inch or two beyond the flowers. We 

 try to avoid all formality in every- 

 thing we can and use a few flowers 

 between and beneath the fringe; this 

 is almost necessary in a shower bou- 

 quet, for it would be ridiculous to 

 make it appear as if flowers were fall- 

 ing from a stiff set bunch. 



Ribbons. 



The ribboning of this bouquet may 

 puzzle you the most, but it is an easy 

 matter for clean and supple fingers. 

 There are several sizes of ribbon used 

 and many ways of attaching it. We 

 would like to remind you of the fact 

 that though a bride may greatly ad- 

 mire your bouquet, she usually ad- 

 mires or seeks admiration for her 

 dress, and therefore it is not right to 

 hide it with a dense screen of cheap 

 ribbon. Many put all their ribbons in 

 front; we prefer to have them all 

 around, having them longer in the 

 front. A bolt of ribbon consists of 

 ten yards, from one to two bolts of 

 No. 1 or No. 11/2 ribbon (some use 

 broader; we prefer the narrow size 

 with corded edge), we attach a wire 

 to the end of the ribbon and pass it 

 through the bouquet at different 

 heights, making the loops much lon- 

 ger in front than elsewhere. In or- 

 der to do this properly we put the 

 bouquet in a tall, narrow necked vase, 

 and when we pass the ribbon through 

 the bunch we must be careful to have 

 almost all the loops a different length. 



We get the selected blooms that we 

 have put aside for the ribbon work, 

 break the stems off, use nothing but 

 the flower, here a single spray, next 

 a double spray reversed facing each 

 other. These flowers sbould be 



