22 



The Weekly Fiorists^ Review* 



^ft'Jtrv.:/;-!-:^,- .:.; 



Decgmbbb 16, 1909. 



and a bunch of mistletoe caught in the 

 outside tie; a hamper of pink roses, with 

 a Nile green cord wrapping; a dark twig 

 hamper, lined with holly and filled as a 

 box would be, with scarlet carnations, 

 tied with green or scarlet cord and sealed 

 with a Christmas sticker; a choice 

 fernery filled and delivered in a hamper ; 

 around the fernery lay in holly and 

 mistletoe and wrap with a poinsettia on 

 the outside where the lid is fastened 

 down. 



I wish you all a merry and a busy 

 Christmas. Gertrude Blaib. 



THE ARDISIA. 



One of the merits of the ardisia is that 

 it has great enduring qualities and to 

 lovers of house plants there are few other 

 subjects which will make more satisfac- 

 tory Christmas gifts. You can recom- 

 mend the ardisia to any customer looking 

 for a Christmas remembrance for the lady 

 who dotes on grandmother's garden. 



The ardisia shown in the illustration 

 on page 21 was not in an ordinary flower 

 pot; far be it from such. This was in a 

 special green glazed pottery affair, simi- 

 lar in shape to the ordinary flower pot, 

 but of a color almost matching the green 

 of the ardisia foliage. A good many 

 florists would add a holly red ribbon up 

 in the top of the plant. 



PLANT HAMPERS. 



In the leading flower stores at Christ- 

 mas and Easter nothing sells better than 

 hampers of plants, the poinsettia being 

 the principal plant used at the Christmas 

 season. Of course, the size and price of 

 hamper and plants vary with the needs 

 of the different stores, but the stock used 

 in the average establishment is well illus- 

 trated on this page. Each of these ham- 

 pers was filled with poinsettias, cycla- 

 mens, ferns, Christmas peppers and 

 dracsenas, the poinsettia being the pre- 

 dominating feature. In most cases red 

 ribbon also was added if the customer 

 would pay the price. Of course these 

 hampers are made with a metal lining 

 and they make a quite enduring article. 

 The price may vary widely, but an ar- 

 rangement made to sell at $5 has proved 

 to go out readily when shown in at- 



tractive style in stores where a fair class 

 of trade is handled. 



One of the advantages of these ham- 

 pers is that they can be made up in ad- 

 vance. It is not necessary, with the 

 metal pan, to wait until the last moment 

 before delivery. In some stores the en- 

 tire stock is made up a couple of days 

 before Christmas, permitting all hands 

 to turn in for selling during the rash, 

 but in other stores sales are made from 

 samples, while the men who do the mak- 

 ing up are kept steadily on the job, each 

 article being set away as sold, and a 

 fresh one brought out to take its place. 

 To handle the trade in this way requires 

 a larger force, but it gives the cus- 

 tomer the satisfaction of receiving the 

 actual article selected, and not one some- 

 what similar. 



HOLIDAY CUT FLOWERS. 



In the last few years we have heard a 

 great deal about the sale of plants at the 

 holidays, and after each one of these fes- 

 tivals we are told that it was a "plant 

 Christmas," or a "plant Easter." But 

 the fact remains that cut flowers still 

 constitute the best selling part of the 

 stock. Not only do customers enjoy 

 sending boxes of flowers to their friends, 

 but they buy cut flowers for their own 

 holiday uses. Many a free spender who 

 wants to remember his friends for Christ- 

 mas sends each a box containing a dozen 

 Beauties. Many a metropolitan florist 

 has a number of such customers; men 

 who simply hand out the addresses of 

 those to whom the gifts are to be sent, 

 and after having left quite an order such 

 a customer almost invariably calls up 

 later to add a few names at first over- 

 looked. 



A good many retail florists have pushed 

 the plant end of the business at Christ- 

 mas simply because cut flowers have been 

 high and the opportunity for profit, even 

 at the high retail prices, less than the 

 opportunity to make money on the plants. 

 Another tMng which has been in favor of 

 the plants was that the stock is less per- 

 ishable; orders can be put up in advance 

 and delivered the day before Christmas, 

 while with cut flowers it usually is a case 

 of putting up orders in the early hours 

 of Christmas morning and making imme- 

 diate delivery. 



The changing times rather remove the 

 objection of inadequate supply of cut 

 flowers. Of recent years there have been 

 enough, or nearly enough, and with the 

 great increase in glass the chances of any 

 extreme shortage are reduced to the mini- 

 mum. In these modern times there sel- 

 dom is a holiday when stock is not tO' 

 be had in the big wholesale markets. 

 Furthermore, prices are not so high as 

 they once were. Perhaps one pays as 

 much for a rose, but he gets a much bet- 

 ter rose, and the same is true of prac- 

 tically all other cut stock. A good many 

 florists who once put most of their energy 

 into pushing plant arrangements are now 

 turning once more to cut blooms. This 

 is especially true of those high class 

 stores which want to do just a little 

 differently from what is done by their 

 less pretentious competitors. 



MODERATE PRICED NOVELTIES. 



More and more each year the holiday 

 business makes a call for novelties. The 

 time was when the trade was almost 

 wholly on the staple articles. Nowadays 

 the bulk of the holiday trade is done 

 with something out of the ordinary. 

 Where retail florists have equipped them- 

 selves with holiday stock different from 

 that offered their customers week after 

 week the year around, they have found 

 the Christmas sales jumped in a most 

 satisfactory manner. The Christmas shop- 

 per is not looking for every-day articles; 

 what is wanted for gift purposes is some- 

 thing out of the ordinary. 



The Christmas novelties need not be 

 expensive; indeed, in the great major- 

 ity of flower stores there is no sale for 

 the high-priced affairs, and in even the 

 best of storesi the bulk of the sales will 

 be articles of moderate value. 



While it is not the easiest thing to 

 pick up cut flower or plant novelties, 

 with the aid of the supply houses noth- 

 ing is easier than to diversify the stock 

 through the use of plant receptacles. 

 These may be of any material, from the 

 ordinary red pot, with its crepe paper 

 cover, to an imported decorated china 

 art novelty that has a value many times 

 greater than that of the plant it con- 

 tains. Any florist can supply himself 

 with, a stock in variety by taking poin- 



Decorated Hampers for Christmas Plant Arrangements. 



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