MAY 13, 19C9. 



The Weekly Florists' Review* 



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THE RETAIL 



FLORIST.. 



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GALAX AND FLOWERS. 



The wreath of galax leaves and flow- 

 ers shown in the accompanying illustra- 

 tion was made in the French style, the 

 ribbon being placed at the top to convey 

 the idea of hanging the wreath, so often 

 seen in the windows of the Paris shops. 

 The roses, gardenias and lily of the val- 

 ley are used on the lower half, balancing 

 the ribbon on the upper. The back- 

 ground is of galax leaves. This is one 

 of the funeral designs by Charles Henry 

 Fox, at the Sign of the Eose, Philadel- 

 phia, who believes that this arrangement 

 will appeal to cultured taste. 



Phil. 



THE SUCCESSFUL DESIGNER. 



He Reproduces Nature. 



If a man spends a large part of his 

 life in searching his brain for scenes of 

 real nature, as one may see it in the sur- 

 rounding country, and then tries to re- 

 produce the same in a miniature form, 

 by means of a floral basket or some other 

 piece of work made in a flower store, 

 such a man may be termed a flower 

 nature-imitator. By this I mean one who 

 puts his heart in his work, as it were, 

 and who, in walking through the fields 

 or on the banks of some brook, may there 

 see some particular flower and a coloring 

 which nature has blended. And, carrying 

 in his brain a full picture of what he 

 has seen, he goes back to the flower 

 store and there reproduces the coloring 

 and the same effect in a basket or bou- 

 quet, so that a person who looks at it has 

 the same impression as he would in look- 

 ing at the same thing in flower nature, 

 and perceives that the designer has so 

 carried the idea in his brain that there 

 has been no mistake made. 



Mechanical, Because Unoatural. 



Another man may have seen the same 

 thing and imagined the same picture, but 

 in trying to carry out his impression he 

 finds that when he has half finished his 

 work he is getting far away from the 

 flower nature picture he saw, and is 

 making something mechanical. His brain 

 has acted the part of a machine, and his 

 hands have done the work. Hence, when 

 it is finished, one can see something that 

 seems to look beautiful, but there is fhat 

 something about it that takes it far away 

 from nature. 



There is a great deal of wiring in the 

 flower business, and this, I believe, is a 

 proper thing where you see that it is 

 necessary in order to make the result look 

 more natural. Of course, there are a 

 great many designs and pieces of floral 

 work which require all flowers to be 

 wired, but these, you will find, are de- 

 signs which the inventive part of our 

 work has taken hold of and has shown 

 'IS how we can make something which is 

 !*Ppropriate for a good many occasions, 

 but which, like the building of a house, 

 was to be improved upon to enable the 



florists to advance with the change of 

 years. 



Improvement Along Natural Lines. 



Take any other kind of business, for 

 instance, and you find that almost every- 

 thing each year has been improved upon, 

 and the advancement has been looked 

 upon as a good thing. The same is true 

 of the flower business. The blending of 

 colors is supposed to be as near as pos- 

 sible to the picture of real nature, as 

 there is nothing more beautif&l than that 

 which nature has made, but the design- 

 er 's aim should be to improve the me- 

 chanical part of it. Therefore, in mak- 



Characier as Shown in Work. 



It i3 every man's character and his 

 attitude toward his work which makes 

 his work look different from that of 

 others. Take, for instance, a man who 

 cares nothing about how he looks, or in 

 what way he does his work, but simply 

 follows the system that has been laid out 

 by a good many other people; he is not 

 as finished and as succcs3ful in his work 

 as is the man who likes to see all his sur- 

 roundings looking neat, beautiful, and in 

 an up-to-date condition. The latter looks 

 at the other man's work, finds out how 

 he has done this or that, and then, with 

 his newly-acquired ideas in mind, he tries 

 to improve upon them. He may not fully 

 succeed the first time, but a person who 

 watches his work may see just where he 

 has improved it, and made it look a little 

 more like nature than the other fellow's. 

 He keeps on trying, and each time that 

 he makes the same thing you can see an 

 improvement. 



Danger of Running in Ruts. 



The true artist does nothing carelessly 

 or indifferently, but shows a real love for 



Galax. Roses and Gardenias. 



ing up such things as funeral titsigns, 

 sprays, baskets and wedding bouquets, 

 the coloring and natural instinct should 

 be followed, and the balance should be 

 the improvement that the florist makes 

 in it, in order to give it a more natural 

 and beautiful appearance. 



Every man can criticise another's 

 work, as there are no two persons born 

 with the same ideas. Hence no two can 

 see nature alike, and it only remains to 

 decide which one of the two has more 

 closely followed out the original and 

 real ideas. 



his work. Like the man that he is, he 

 knows that he must improve, or, as the 

 years go by, he will find that his work is 

 like a wagon, with its wheels running in 

 the same old rut and in the same old 

 way, and that he has done but little for 

 the betterment of his trade. 



When a man has tried all this and can 

 still look out into flower nature and see 

 new things to be reproduced and im- 

 proved upon, he can really be called a 

 nature imitator, or floral artist. 



H. I*ICHNALS. 



