28 



The Weekly Florists' Review* 



March 17, 1910. 



quired their stock a few pieces at a time, 

 buying whenever they ran across a unique 

 shape. By this means it has been pos- 

 sible to add much variety to the holiday 

 display. 



The Firefly azalea, and also Dr. 

 Charles Enke, are among the handiest 

 plants of which the average florist can 

 have stock at Easter. With thess small 

 subjects an immense variety of arrange- 

 ments can be made. The planter can use 

 them in making up large baskets and 

 hampers of mixed stock, or he can use 

 them in such trifles as the neat little ar- 

 rangement Fhown in the halftone printed 

 on page 32. Here, we have a little 

 braided basket with a handle made of 

 red-barked twigs. In it there is one 

 Firefly azalea, with some adiantum. The 

 pussy willows add to the spring-like ef- 

 fect. If a little more money is to be 

 asked, a ribbon may be added. 



The most common way of showing the 

 azalea is with the pot covered with crepe 

 paper, Porto Rican or the newer and bet- 

 ter soft "chifl'on" mats. No store that 

 makes any pretense of being in step with 

 the times shows its Easter plants with 

 bare pots. Of course, some of the 



store that does not carry a good stock of 

 crepe papers, Porto Rican and chiffon 

 mats, with ribbons and chiffons to go 

 with them, is a long Avay behind the 

 times. 



THE READY SELLERS. 



Moderate Priced Plant Arrangements. 



Here and there, in the principal cities 

 of the country, there is a retail- flower 

 store that is able to roll up a large vol- 

 ume of holiday business, offering to its 

 customers nothing of popular price. But 

 in the great majority of even the best 

 metropolitan stores, the bulk of the sales 

 are made on articles that sell at from $5 

 down. In the stores which cater to the 

 middle classes of the big cities, and the 

 stores of the smaller cities, these latter 

 being so numerous that they handle by 

 far the largest part of all the stock used 

 at Easter, $5 is somewhere near the 

 limit of price which can be obtained; 

 anything valued above that figure is more 

 for purposes of display than anything 

 else. The articles which sell at from $2 

 to $3 are the ones that are sold in great- 



The Ribbon Wat the Needed Touch on this Basket. 



decorators overdo the dressing and ob- 

 scure rather than enhance the beauty of 

 their plants, but, happilj', their num- 

 ber is not great. Just as people of culti- 

 vated taste stay away from the places 

 where the plants are shown in bare pots, 

 so do they pass by the store that looks 

 as though its main object is the sale of 

 mats and ribbon. Too much of a*good 

 thing is as bad as none at all, but the 



est numbers, and where these are taste- 

 fully made up there seems little limit to 

 the business which can be done. ' 



While it pays to have in the window, 

 and in the store, a few arrangements of 

 the better class, just as the department 

 store puts its best goods in the window, 

 special attention should be paid to pro- 

 viding a large and varied stock of the 

 moderate priced plant arrangements. It 



often is asserted that there is little nov- 

 elty, or too much sameness, in the stock 

 that flower stores offer from season to 

 season. If this is the case it shows n 

 lack of versatility on the part of the 

 florist. The variety of plant arrange- 

 ments made possible by the ingenuity of 

 the supply houses borders upon the in 

 finite. 



Order the Requisites at Once. 



In case the retail florist has not yet 

 provided for his Easter stock, he should 

 lose no time in consulting the supply 

 house from which he ordinarily purchases 

 his requisites. The leading supply deal 

 ers have based a large part of their suc- 

 cess upon their ability to comprehend the 

 individual needs of their customers; in 

 m^iny cases the supply man is better able 

 than the florist himself to tell what the 

 florist can sell, and an extremely large 

 mail order business now is done in bas- 

 kets, plant boxes and dishes of one kind 

 and another. The days have passed when 

 a dealer in supplies would overstock his 

 customer. The supply man recognizes 

 that if the stock he passes on to the »•- 

 tailer does not go any farther, that is the 

 end of that retailer's patronage. Load a 

 retailer's shelves with unsalable baskets, 

 and that is the end of that customer. 

 On the other band, send him only the 

 things which he can sell readily and he 

 will reorder time after time and leave the 

 selection of the articles largely to the 

 supply man. It is a case of inspiring 

 confidence, and the leading supply houses 

 have inspired confidence in the highest 

 degree. 



The buyer should make it plain that he 

 wants a large variety of plant receptacles 

 rather than a considerable number of a 

 few patterns or styles. It is by buying 

 only a few pieces of each style, more 

 than by anything else, that variety is 

 give'n to the Easter stock. Order three 

 or six each of a dozen different styles, 

 rather than a dozen of three or six styles. 

 Then it is an unimaginative filler of bas- 

 kets who cannot devise something for 

 every taste. 



A Table of Good Sellers. 



The illustration on page 29 shows a 

 counter of moderate priced plant arrange- 

 ments that last Easter stood along one 

 side of a leading Chicago store. This is 

 a store in which many plant arrange- 

 ments are sold at from $10 to $15, but 

 the display of cheaper articles is never- 

 theless one of the most important fea- 

 tures of the holiday arrangements. There 

 was nothing on this table that was priced 

 above $5 and most of the articles were 

 around $3. No matter what the customer 

 came to buy, hardly one left the store 

 without having selected something from 

 this display. In addition to the baskets, 

 no two alike, there were a large number 

 of small brass and china receptacles, each 

 one planted with a single small plant. 

 Some of these sold as low as $1 each and 

 large numbers were disposed of. Several 

 fern dishes, filled, for table use were 

 included in the" display and sold well. 



Sales were made direct from the stock 

 on display, the articles selected being 

 tagged and set away for delivery when 

 wanted, the working force replenishing 

 the stock as fast as the salesmen could 

 use it. 



In the arrangement of these inexpen- 

 sive, salable articles good taste is as im- 

 portant as it is in making up the more 

 valuable baskets. Simply because a thing 

 is designed to sell at a popular price is 

 no reason to slight the work. The aver- 



