•iji g^Jippii.nif |Ji;j ,.j«ii ■! ipjm.i r 



May 4, 1922 



The Florists^ Review 



33 



iij ptsiijijcii?tjippppijpi?i?g«?i? gffipq?g^ 



SCHLING SHOWS NEW WAY 



:: 



I 



I 

 F.'M»id!ii"iiV 



NEW AKT IN DECORATION. 



By MAX SCHLING. 



Turns Loss into Profit. 



Flbristry, because of its variation, 

 makes work a pleasure and is inspiring. 

 This is one reason why florists who love 

 their profession are continually on their 

 mettle to produce new and better work, 

 may it be for funeral or for wedding, 

 table decoration or gift basket. No 

 matter how much there is of it, it is 

 easily accomplished when it can be done 

 within our own four walls, but the mo- 

 ment there is outside work to be done — 

 for instance, house or church decora- 

 tions — it becomes strenuous. Should 

 such work happen on a day when busi- 

 ness is generally going strong, then any 

 organization is liable to be in peril of 

 disruption. One has to rush through 

 work and one doesn 't take care of stock 

 as one should. Flowers are often used 

 under tEese conditions with less dis- 

 crimination than usual. The impres- 

 sion one has at the moment makes him 

 overestimate the work on hand and 

 stock is bought in unnecessary quan- 

 tities and it is not handled right. This 

 is especially the case where decorations 

 are made in the old style and of the old 

 type — where extra work, with packing 

 of palms, sending them out and carrying 

 them into the church or into the house, 

 possibly a few stories high, takes much 

 time of the employees. When there is 

 a rush of business, all that time is taken 

 away from other just as important work. 

 We all have undergone this kind of dis- 

 ruption. Only the florist who has green- 



houses in connection with his shop and 

 from them can draw several extra men 

 to handle palms and other material,' has 

 comparatively easy work. But every 

 florist, with greenhouses or without 

 greenhouses, knows after he has finished 

 such a decoration that it is by no means 

 all profit, and often, through careless 

 and overanxious estimating, the ex- 

 penses so exceed the return that the 

 game is a losing one. 



Small Florist Hardest Hit. 



What effort has ever been made to off- 

 set the disadvantages of these cases? 

 Extremely little. In an ordinary flower 

 shop these cases are few and far be- 

 tween, and when one such hard day, 

 with much work and little profit, is past, 

 it is often forgotten and not remembered 

 until another happens. It is always the 

 little florist who is hardest hit. When 

 he learns of the larger florists making 

 big decorations, he wonders how much 

 money there is in it. He does not know 

 that a palm or any other kind of plant 

 will stand only a certain strain and can 

 be used only a few times for decorative 

 purposes and that the loan of larger 

 plants, in proportion to their price, does 

 not give the right return for their cost. 

 Irrespective of expense, he tries to ar- 

 range so that he can rent palms in case 

 of need. Persons who give an order for 

 a decoration prefer to place it with a 

 florist who has greenhouses, irrespective 

 of whether they are his customers at 

 other times. The florist who has no 



greenhouses, anxious to show his ability 

 to make the decoration even though he 

 has to borrow the plants, often secures 

 the order by underestimating, not be- 

 cause he wants to beat the other fellow 

 so much as because he overlooks the dif- 

 ficulties which arise. In securing the 

 order he counts transportation, extra 

 labor, etc., but in most cases he forgets 

 an important item, the dismantling after 

 the affair is over, and most florists for- 

 get that the plants are damaged most 

 in this process. 



Experience is the best teacher, and no 

 one knows better and no one has had 

 more experience than the one who has 

 made mistakes. I am one of them. 

 Luckily, I am one of the few who make 

 a mistake only once and immediately try 

 to find a way to prevent such mistakes 

 occurring again. In early years I found 

 that I was at a disadvantage as against 

 the fellow who had his own greenhouses 

 and plants. I found that low charges 

 hardly paid for delivery and calling for 

 plants, including the wrapping paper 

 and labor. If the charges are based on 

 a fair profit, the customer believes him- 

 self to be overcharged, because he does 

 not understand that the change of at- 

 mosphere and the packing and repacking 

 damages the palms to such an extent 

 that the price charged is not compensa- 

 tion for the depreciation of the palms or 

 other plants. 



Experience's Lesson. 



This is one reason why I tried to in- 

 troduce a different type of decoration. 

 It was a selfish reason, but I had to have 



Only a Few Ferns and Palms Used, Most of the Decoration G>nsists of Smilax, Hydrangeas and Other Flowers. 



