April 2, 1914. 



The Florists' Review 







>. -,.*' 



Here are the Two Great Staples, the Bread and Butter, the Meat and Potatoes, of our Easter Diet. 



ing such choice stock that nobody but 

 the wealthy can buy them, but it is 

 equally possible to arrange small, in- 

 expensive baskets of cut flowers to sell 

 for not more than a dollar or two. 

 From $2 to $3 has been found a popu- 

 lar price. 



In this issue there are a number of 

 illustrations of baskets of spring flow- 

 ers sold in a leading Chicago store last 

 Easter. It has been found that the 

 only way to sell these baskets is to 

 have a display of them in the store; 

 the clerk cannot sell except by sample. 

 Fill a window with them and see to it 

 that the flowers are kept fresh. Fill 

 the window early in the week and scat- 

 ter similar baskets through the store. 

 Then let everybody take orders for de- 

 livery Saturday afternoon or Sunday 

 morning. By getting a sufficiently 

 early start a big bunch of good busi- 

 ness can be accumulated before the 

 real Easter selling begins. 



THE EASTEB PI.ANTS. 



A florist who likes to believe he does 

 a first-class business would as soon 

 think of going out to lunch without his 

 hat as of delivering the Easter plants 

 without a pot cover. 



Of course the greater part of the 

 Easter plants will have the red clay 

 covered merely with crepe paper, and 

 another large part will have a little 

 tonier spring suit in the way of Porto 

 Bican and chiffon mats. But the swell 

 plants this year will either have bas- 

 ket pot covers or will be shifted from 

 the red pots and planted in the tin 

 liners with which practically all bas- 

 kets now are fitted. An oeeasional 

 plant will be sold in an earthenware 

 jardiniere, but not many — this is the 

 day of the basket. 



A great many stores still will sell 

 considerable numbers of the big bas- 

 kets of mixed plants, an excellent ex- 

 ample of which is shown on page 47. 

 Five years ago such arrangements 

 were the acme of the Easter plants- 

 man's art and, large or small, each 



basket contained a number of varieties 

 of plants. Today, however, the style 

 is different, for floral fashions change, 

 the same as fashions in skirts or bon- 

 nets. This season theie^ will be, in 

 most cases, only one variety of plant 

 in a basket. If it is lilies, lilies alone 

 will be used, and a rose plant in a bas- 

 ket will not have its beauty hidden by 

 crowding around it a lot of miscellan- 

 eous stock. As the quality of the Eas- 

 ter plants has improved, the tendency 



Ward Roses and Valley. 



has been toward giving each specimen 

 a chance to show its merit. Just as 

 the landscape man puts his choice tree 

 out on the lawn where it can be seen, 

 so the retail florist puts his fine plant 

 in a harmonious receptacle and brings 

 it out from the mass so that, like a 

 true specimen, its beauty can be seen 

 and appreciated. 



When it is said that the fashion is to 

 plant only one variety in a receptacle. 



it is not meant that the bottoms of the 

 plants should be left bare. If the re- 

 ceptacle does not cover, as usually is 

 the case where crepe papers or mats 

 are used, it still is the proper thing to 

 use small ferns for low plants, or 

 primulas and similar plants for taller 

 growing ones. Nothing detracts more 

 from the appearance of a first-class 

 plant than to have the soil bare. If 

 the soil is not obscured with such stock 

 as is used for fern dishes, then by all 

 means cover it with green sheet moss, 

 the greener the better. 



Ribbons will be used this season 

 more extensively than ever before. A 

 year or two ago it was chiffon that 

 everybody wanted, but the vogue for 

 chiffon has run its course. Not that 

 chiffon will be dropped, for large 

 quantities of it still will be used, but 

 the tendency is toward ribbon, and the 

 better grades of ribbon. 



PUTTING UP THE ORDERS. 



After the close of business, the night 

 before Easter, the retail flower store be- 

 comes a hive of industry. Taking the 

 orders is only one detail of the Easter 

 work. True, if the selUng is not suc- 

 cessful the night work will be light, but 

 it seldom happens that a flower store 

 does not find it necessary to keep its 

 force working far into the mornine 

 hours of Easter. 



Some of the big stores do business 

 enough each day so that they can carry 

 help to divide the work. Certain em- 

 ployees are salesmen only, while others 

 put up the orders the salesmen take, 

 and another department attends to de- 

 livery, each crew being responsible only 

 for its own part of the work. In the 

 swell store the Easter rush is handled 

 without much change in the ordinary 

 daily routine, but such stores are not 

 numerous. The average store requires 

 the sales person to put up the orders 

 taken, and to see to their deliver^. Jn 

 such a store the closing of the door Sat- 

 urday night before Easter is the signal 



