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1342 



The Weekly Florists^ Review^ 



Mabch 21, 1907. 



a plant receptacle. it is offered in 

 dozens of shapes and sizes and goes well 

 with almost every flowering or foliage 

 plant. 



For Variety. 



The bougainvillea is a plant which al- 

 ways attracts attention. It does not 

 always please, but a few are useful. The 

 one illustrated was a rather ungainly 

 plant, and not especially well flowered, 

 but it took the eye of every one who 

 entered the store where it stood just 

 before Easter last year : ' * What an 

 odd plant," was the almost invariable 

 comment. It sold for only $3, but it 

 paid. The pot cover was deep green 

 crepe paper outside, and inside a cou]>le 

 of folds of deep red to match the 

 flowers. 



Of course the rambler roses will be 

 largely in evidence this Easter. Small 

 plants of the Crimson Rambler, and the 

 new ubiquitous Baby Rambler will be 

 used by thousands to make up all sorts 

 of baskets, hampers, etc. Larger, well 

 flowered plants are best with little adorn- 

 ment; possibly only a stone jardiniere of 

 some dark color. 



The Omnipresent Plants. 



You will never see an Easter without 

 plenty of azaleas. There are those who 



vogue. You need little if any ribbon 

 about an azalea. 



Primroses and bulb stock are the 

 staples of Easter stock, second only to 

 the lily. You can make them up in a 

 hundred ways, at any cost you wish. 

 Several of these staple arrangements 

 Avere shoAvn in last week's Review. 



Inexpensive Novelties. 



The average store will be able to sell 

 a great many of the little things like 

 lichen-grown shoes filled with ferns, the 

 small Pompeian jars filled with selag- 

 inella, asparagus, etc.; indeed, many 

 sales Avill be missed if more or less of 

 these things are not shown, both at 

 Christmas and Easter. What you don't 

 sell at one holiday you can lay away for 

 the other. 



Last year the chicks and goslings were 

 widely used. They went into practically 

 every plant arrangement, whether it was 

 a little one for a table center-piece or a 

 big basket for window display. The 

 department stores got hold of them and 

 made them more common than they 

 would become through florists' use, but 

 that is not likely to injure their popu- 

 larity outside of the extreme set, to 

 whom few of us cater. 



The ribbon used this season will be 

 more largely chiffon than ever before. 



Spiraea in Adjustable Plant Basket. 



^^'N^ 



say they do not sell as well as they once 

 did. They are best decorated only with 

 a pot cover. Some decorators wrap 

 crepe paper about them until it is an 

 impossibility to see the flowers at all 

 except from above. This is all wrong 

 and fortunately is not often seen since 

 ste for the natural has come into 



Tlie use of ribbon is increasing steadily, 

 but the tendency is moving from the 

 heavy material once so commonly em- 

 ployed and toward lighter effects. 



Catskill, N. Y. — ^Henry Hansen says 

 that from all indications Easter trade 

 will break the best records. 



COLOR COMBINATIONS. 



The art of color combination is one of 

 the priceless gifts to the florist who pos- 

 sesses it. There is nothing more valu- 

 able to the retailer than a knowledge as 

 to how to handle colors. It is not only 

 a tremendous factor in the success of 

 made-up work and decorations, but em- 

 ployed in a window display it is an ad- 

 vertisement ahead of anything which 

 can be achieved with no special expense. 



When a window is filled with all sorts 

 of flowers and accessories the result is 

 never so good as it might be with those 

 of one color, and its shades and tints. 

 For instance, one of the most attractive 

 windows in Chicago recently was ar- 

 ranged by O. J. Friedman, all yellow. 

 The flowers were daffodils; the recep- 

 tacles were golden brown; the ribbons 

 were yellow; the green was light aspara- 

 gus. 



Another attractive display at the same 

 time was that of the Fleischman Floral 

 Co., which was all in shades of purple. 

 The low pieces were filled with violets, 

 larger ones with Dutch hyacinths, and 

 the background was of purple rhododen- 

 drons. The ribbon used was purple and 

 the whole effect was one which would 

 appeal to any artistic taste. 



THE VALUE OF SYSTEM. 



Easter is like Christmas in a good 

 many other respects than that it comes 

 but once a year. It brings a rush that 

 overtaxes facilities designed for every- 

 day purposes and brings out the value of 

 system as no other test can show it up. 

 You may have ever so good stock and do 

 a splendid business, bu^ if your system 

 is at fault you will be hopelessly at sea 

 when one of these rushes comes. 



Because of the difficulty of securing 

 capable help for only a couple of days, 

 in most stores it is the custom for all 

 hands to help sell during business hours 

 and then turn in after closing time and 

 work perhaps the better part of the 

 night getting orders put up for delivery 

 Easter morning. If you work it this 

 way you will save a great deal of fric- 

 tion by having each clerk put up, or at 

 least inspect, the orders he has himself 

 taken. In a hurry time it is impossible 

 to write down all the details of every 

 order and a wide-awake clerk will be on 

 the watch to see that he meets the slight 

 preferences of the customer as he learned 

 of them in making the sale. Where the 

 orders are taken by one person and filled 

 by another it is necessary to get every 

 little detail down on the order if we are 

 to give the fullest satisfaction to the 

 customer. 



We find order sheets more satisfactory 

 than order books, for several reasons. 

 Ours are fashioned after the charge 

 tickets of a department store, but we 

 make only one copy. The heading of 

 the slips reads, "Deliver to; charge to; 

 day ; hour ; ' ' etc. We make a separate 

 order for every gift a customer may 

 have us send ; the more the merrier. The 

 cards are often a fruitful cause of com- 

 plaint, but we avoid this by entering the 

 word "card" as a part of the order, if 

 one is to be sent. It is checked off like 

 any other part of the order in filling. If 

 we do not have the customer's card as a 

 part of our regular stock the one that 

 is left to go with an order is put in an 

 envelope and attached to the order with 

 a little wire clip. If a special plant is 

 sold the order slip is made out as usual, 

 tag written and attached to the plant, 



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