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November 11, 1909. 



The Weekly Florists^ Review^ 



27 



Some of the Specimen Plants Exhibited at New York by W. H. Waite, Gardener for Samuel Untermyer. 



gardener for Wm. Eockefeller. His va- 

 rieties were Mrs. J. E. Dunn, bronze; 

 Mary Mason, red; Mrs. H. Pajtridge, 

 red; Marion Hankey, pink; Lady Hope- 

 town, pink; F. S. Vallis, yellow; Bea- 

 trice May, white; Glenview, yellow, and 

 Viscount Venusta, pink. 



The judges were Peter Duflf, Alex. Mc- 

 Kenzie and Wm. Scott. 



The attendance was good. There were 

 a number of trade visitors from New 

 York. 



AMHERST. MASS. 



The class in floriculture at the Mas- 

 sachusetts Agricultural College held an 

 exhibition November 5, of table decora- 

 tions, there being ten tables, each being 

 the work of two men entering as a team. 

 Chrysanthemums were the flowers used. 

 First prize was awarded to H. F. Wil- 

 lard and C. J. Green, second to I. W. 

 Davis and E. M. Brown. The judges 

 were H. W. Field, Prof. A. S. Kinney 

 and Dr. W. B. Lancaster. 



THE RETAIL 



FLORIST 



FOR THANKSGIVING. 



Table Decorations. 



Table and window displays are the two 

 things which demand the attention of the 

 average florist for Thanksgiving, with 

 the addition of some corsage bouquets or 

 occasionally some wedding work. In 

 many cases a table decoration for the 

 window or front of the store would be a 

 telling advertisement. Let the table be 

 set with silver in the best manner possi- 

 ble, and let a neat, simple decoration be 

 added and changed each day. 



Among the accessories of cut flowers 

 for the Thanksgiving dinner table are 

 the autumn leaves, bittersweet berries, 

 pepper tree branches, milkweed pods, cat- 

 tails and all such wild material of which 

 we never grow tired, and the wheat, 

 pumpkins and fruit. The newness of the 

 decoration will not appear so much in 

 the material used as in the way in which 

 it is used. The few examples which shall 

 be given here are not intended to be 

 rigid patterns, but as mere suggestions, 

 which shall stimulate 6ach one to seize 

 upon other suitable material from his 



own greenhouse, garden or woods, and in 

 many cases more artistic combinations 

 may be discovered. 



A basket of fruit is the most common- 

 place affair that could be mentioned, but 

 yet how delightfully inviting may be the 

 combination of fruit, foliage and flow- 

 ers! It may be decorated in a hundred 

 different ways; here are a few: A low 

 basket of grapes, trimmed low on the 

 side of the handle with a plant of adian- 

 tum or a cluster of the fronds, and high 

 on the other side with a bunch of violets, 

 with their own foliage and a yellow 

 autumn leaf; the same basket tipped 

 slightly over a table mirror, with fruit 

 lying on the mirror, loose flowers and 

 ferns decorating the edge of the mirror, 

 and an apparently unattached spray of 

 flowers falling toward the high edge of 

 the basket and out over it ; a Japanese 

 tray basket lined with autumn leaves, 

 with stems of two chrysanthemums fol- 

 lowing the handle and flowers caught 

 against each other at the top — this for 

 serving fruit or merely for a decorative 

 centerpiece. 



For Lone Tables. 



For a long table get a number of very 

 small pumpkins and attach at irregular 

 intervals along a line, composed of a 

 number of strings of smilax, which ex- 

 tends from one end of the table to the 

 other. Some may stand right side up, the 

 vine passing up over and around the stem 

 and down again. Others may lie on their 

 sides, but some may be scooped out and 

 a small vase set in to hold a few suitably 

 sized flowers. The line of smilax should 

 take a meandering course along the cen- 

 ter of the table. Set a few candles, with 

 pumpkin-colored shades, on brass candle- - 

 sticks along at intervals between the 

 pumpkins. If it can be done without 

 crowding the table or obscuring the vine, 

 scatter some deep yellow mums on the 

 table, keeping the stem lines in coinci- 

 dence with the smilax line. 



Another, for a long oval or rectangular 

 table: Have a round center plaque of 

 flowers or ferns, and at each end a low 

 crescent of fruit and flowers pointing 

 toward the center. Have nothing scat- 

 tered about between these fractions of 

 the decoration. Their lines will keep 

 their relations apparent. Any other fea- 

 ture would make a confusion of lines. 



An all green piece might be made of 

 grapes and adiantums, but one , can 

 scarcely resist adding some violets or 

 pink to the color plan. 



Yellow or bronze seems to be the 

 Thanksgiving color, as scarlet is the 

 Christmas color, and how to use a few 

 chrysanthemums on an ordinary table in 

 an out-of-the-ordinary way is the problem 

 for the average customer. 



Mums With Leaves or Fruit. 



Here is something easy to describe and 

 easy to do: Make a little support of 

 green moss, three or four inches high, on 

 the center of the table. Bind together 

 carelessly a half dozen or nine incurved 

 mums and a bit of autumn foliage with 

 wire. Cover the wire with a narrow band 

 of birch bark, and lay the bunch on the 

 moss so that the flowers will be free to 

 swing and hold up from the table in the 

 reclining position. 



Something else: Lay a convenient 

 number of chrysanthemums in a narrow 



