December 14, 1911. 



The WcdHy Florists' Review. 



31 



A Basket of Christmas Greens— a Study in Color Harmony. 



BASKETS OF GREENS. 



A flower store is to sell flowers, isn't 

 it? But how often have you seen a 

 customer come in, look around, walk 

 up and down, hesitate, and come com- 

 pletely to a standstill because the stock 

 in trade this Christmas was exactly the 

 stock in trade last Christmas! There 

 are not many ways a retail florist can 

 diversify his offerings for gift pur- 

 poses, but one of the ways is to think 

 up different arrangements for the sta- 

 ples of his stock. 



The illustration on this page shows an 

 arrangement of Christmas greens that 

 has made a hit. It does not appeal to 

 the customer who wants something big 

 and showy, but rather to the person of 

 finer taste, to whom the spirit and not 

 the substance is the thing that counts. 

 This was one of those inexpensive Jap- 

 anese baskets, reddish brown in color. 

 It was low, with a big, strong handle, 

 for show, because the weight of the 

 basket was trifling. In the basket were 

 all the Christmas greens — the very best 

 quality, you may be sure. There was 

 hemlock, holly, mistletoe and California 

 red berries, arranged with the deftness 

 that marks the man designed by nature 

 for this calling. The handle carried a 

 big bow of No. 80 satin ribbon of just 

 the shade of the red berries, and the 

 basket, with its perfect color harmony, 

 was as effective a gift as one of dis- 

 criminating taste could imagine. 



THE CHRISTMAS GREENS. 



TEMPERATURE FOR STORES. 



I should like to learn what is con- 

 sidered the best temperature for a 

 flower store. T. S. C. 



A flower store should not be kept too 

 warm. An average temperature of 60 

 degrees is about right. The room 

 should also be as light as possible and 

 should be properly ventilated. In such 

 a store the stock will keep well and 

 give good satisfaction. H. S. 



How to Keep Them in Condition. 



A leading feature of the Christmas 

 trade in many flower stores is the greens 

 business. In even the highest class 

 stores holly and other wreaths are in- 

 dispensable and, with the average 

 store, the trade in greens has grown 

 till it takes up a great deal of time. 

 We must either make up these wreaths 

 and garlands ourselves or buy them. 

 Some can be bought to advantage, 

 while others are difficult to get in the 

 right quality for a particular trade. 

 Having these wreaths and wreathing in 

 sufficient quantity, ready in advance of 

 the demand, and kept so that they will 

 be in good order for Christmas eve, will 

 require no little thought and manage- 

 ment. If you make up your own greens 

 you can not put it off till the last day, 

 when everybody is on the jump with 

 other work, but must make them up 

 several days before sale. Then it is 

 that how to keep them right will be 

 worth knowing. A good many don't 

 know how and sometimes find their 

 Christmas stock, after all the work and 

 worry, is not green but lemon yellow. 



Holly and Holly Wreaths. 



Without doubt holly is the most im- 

 portant article in this line. It should 

 not be exposed to severe weather. The 

 cases should be stored in a cool shed. 

 Either heat or dryness will shrivel it 

 up. A cool, rather moist cellar would 

 be the ideal place. It is desirable to 

 sort it over on arrival or while your 

 workers are making it up. Use the 

 short stuff for making wreaths and the 

 good, heavily berried branches and 

 sprays for selling loose, as there is a 

 great demand for nice stock that way. 



If you do not have the cool, moist 

 cellar for storing the loose branches, and 

 more particularly the wreaths when 

 they are made up, perhaps a week 



ahead of time, they keep well beneath 

 a bench in a cool greenhouse, laying 

 coarse paper on the ground, to keep the 

 wreaths clean, and newspaper over 

 them, to keep the light away. The 

 light hurts, even if the place itself is 

 cold and damp; so shut out the light. 

 Do not put down more than two layers 

 of the wreaths, or the weight will flat- 

 ten out the lower ones. Some florists 

 make their holly wreaths double and 

 some make the back of lycopodium. 



If you are like most of us there is a 

 grocery on the corner that will sell 

 holly wreaths for 15 cents. You can 

 meet the price, if you want to, for you 

 can buy wreaths such as the grocer 

 sells for $90 per thousand, but your 

 trade will not want that kind. Just 

 have a few to show — they cost only 

 121/^ cents by the dozen — it will help 

 the sale of better wreaths. 



If the florist has a sale for light 

 wreaths he hardly can make them as 

 cheaply as he can buy them. Of course 

 there is no great quantity of holly used 

 on single wreaths and, if one works in 

 red winter berries in place of the nat- 

 ural holly berries, a low grade of holly 

 will do. Still, the average florist will 

 find he can not make his cheap wreaths 

 so economically as he can buy them. 

 The big dealers in the city, who employ 

 hundreds of ' ' girls, ' ' have wreath mak- 

 ing down to a fine point. They pay 

 only about 2 cents for making a wreath 

 of the lightest kind and the women 

 are so expert that they put them up 

 far faster than a green hand can do. 

 Consequently one gets the same wreath 

 cheaper than he can make it, or he 

 gets a better wreath for the same 

 money. 



But when it comes to fine wreaths, 

 then the florist has to make them him- 

 self. First of all he must get good 

 holly, then he must use a lot of it, and 

 he must take the same pains he would 

 with a wreath of flowers. A cheap 



