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Febbuabt 1, 1812. 



The Weekly Florists' Review. 



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White China Receptacles Filled with Inezpeniive Plants and Trimmed fcr St. Valentioe's Day by Jacob Schulz. 



retailers who grow their own plants 

 that if the public will buy boxes of cut 

 flowers to send as valentines, baskets of 

 plants can be sold for the same purpose, 

 just as at Christmas. 



Now, the public expects its Christ- 

 mas plants to be hung with Christmas 

 bells, or tied with ribbon of the Christ- 

 mas hue; and by the same token, the 

 Easter plants are known for what they 

 are because here and there peeps an 

 incubator chick or duckling. So to 

 make a St. Valentine 's day plant just 

 that and nothing else, to make it carry 

 unmistakably the sentiment of the day, 

 what more natural than to trim it up 

 with Cupids, darts, or little hearts? 



Those who tried it last year found 

 it added materially to their sales. 



Appreciating the value of an air of 

 seasonableness in the stock of the re- 

 tail florists, the supply houses always 

 are quick to provide for their cus- 

 tomers the trifles that g) to make plant 

 decorations timely and this year all 

 the leading houses are offering inex- 

 pensive novelties for use at St. Valen- 

 tine 's day. 



COBSAGE MATERIAL. 



The sales for St, Valentine's day 

 made a big jump forward when the 

 retailers began to feature corsage bou- 

 quets for February 14. Of course the 

 greater part of the sales still are the 

 everyday boxes of loose cut flowers, 

 but the advertising of corsage bouquets 

 has helped sales all along the line by 

 attracting attention to the appropri- 

 ateness of all kinds of flowers for use 

 as valentines. 



The big city stores now use many 

 thousands of violets for St. Valentine's 

 day, almost as many as at Christmas. 

 It is the result of push and publicity. 

 For the better class of trade the violets 

 are made up in corsage bunches of 

 from 100 to 300 flowers. The violet 

 foliage is used, backed by a shield of 

 more or less elaborateness, according to 

 the price charged. In the center of the 



bunch of violets there may be one fine 

 gardenia or three or four spikes of 

 valley, set so that the gardenia or the 

 lower bells of the valley are just above 

 the violets. The stems of the violets 

 ordinarily are wrapped in violet or 



A St. Valentine's Day Basket of Plants. 



green foil, but the best workmen use 

 ribbon. It is surprising how quickly 

 they wrap and fasten the ribbon and 

 attach the shield. Then comes the tie, 

 which may be one of the ready-made 

 affairs now offered in infinite variety 



by all the ribbon and supply houses, or 

 it may be a bow of wide ribbon off 

 the bolt. The box is lined with white 

 tissue, not wax paper, for there is 

 little moisture. With the advent of 

 the better grades of boxes, the wrap- 

 ping of the boxes has been discontin- 

 ued; the box is too fine to conceal. The 

 tag-makers now supply special designs 

 for St. Valentine's day tags. 



Next to violets, sweet peas are the 

 most popular corsage flowers. It takes 

 a more skilled worker to make a good 

 bunch of peas than it does of violets, 

 for the violets ought literally to be 

 bunched, while the peas should _ be 

 more loosely arranged. While adian- 

 tum is only occasionally used with vio- 

 lets, it is the usual green with sweet 

 peas, although many retailers now are 

 using the so-called Mexican ivy in- 

 stead; indeed, the growing popularity 

 of this native of the Santa Cruz moun- 

 tains is cutting into the market for 

 and price of the greenhouse green. For 

 a tie for the peas a special ribbon 

 should be in stock; narrow and light 

 in effect, with colors to match the sev- 

 eral colors of peas that are used from 

 time to time. 



The cattleya is the king of corsage 

 flowers. With the requisites that go 

 to make up bouquets of the other flow- 

 ers, the worker has everything he needs 

 with cattleyas. These should have the 

 green that is added kept well to the 

 back, so that neither the size, form 

 nor color of the individual flowers will 

 be obscured. The Mexican ivy, though 

 a somewhat coarse green, has ' come 

 to be largely used with cattleyas, be- 

 cause it does not wilt down the way 

 adiantum is apt to do. 



Rugby, N. D. — N. P. Lindberg re- 

 ported, under date of January 22, that 

 for a few weeks there had been real 

 winter here, with the temperature as 

 low as 46 degrees below zero. Still, 

 business was fair and the stock in the 

 greenhouses was in good condition. 



