12 



The Weekly Florists' Review. 



NOV£MBlilB 2, 1011. 



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THE RETAIL 



FLORIST 



^s 



"BRED IN OLD KENTUCKY." 



The illustration ou page 11 is of 

 the floral design made by C. L. Brun- 

 son, PadUcah, Ky., which won the lov- 

 ing cup offered by the Palmer Hotel 

 Co., for the best floral design shown 

 at the Paducah fair, October 5, 1911. 

 One of the interesting points was that 

 the designer, W. J. Wright^ was left 

 to his own resources and the stock on 

 hand to win the prize. Special stock 

 had been ordered for this design, with 

 instructions to ship by American Ex- 

 press, and would have arrived in six 

 hours after shipment, but the delivery 

 boy took it to the Adams, which has 

 no ofSce at Paducah, and it arrived 

 thirty hours after shipment, and three 

 hours after judging the designs. Not 

 until four hours before staging did 

 Mr. Wright learn by wire that he would 

 not receive his stock in time and that 

 he would be obliged to do the best he 

 could with the flowers that happened 

 to be on hand. The lower half of the 

 wreath was a heavy bed of adiantum, 

 orchids and valley, the upper half of 

 ivy studded with white roses and val- 

 ley, with showers of valley. The base 

 was of green, palms, pandanus, ferns 

 and plumosus. 



THE NEW BEMB CAB. 



The accompanying illustration is re 

 produced from a photograph of the new 

 delivery car of the Bemb Floral Co. 

 The body was built on a one-ton Fed- 

 eral chassis. Mr. Pochelon was the dc 

 signer. The car is 4x7 feet inside 

 measure, with a height of five feet six 

 inches. It is rather unique in that 

 there are side doors as well as a 

 double rear door. Inside is a seat run- 

 ning lengthwise on each side of the car, 

 from the side doors back. These seats 

 are dropped out of position when not 

 in use, the use being to carry a number 

 of emploj'ees to any large decoration 

 where much help may bo required. Elec- 

 tric lights are used throughout. A 

 meter and clock are installed on the 

 dash, whereby Mr. Pochelon can tell 

 to the minute just how long the driver 

 took for a trip, number of stops made 

 and the duration of each stop. The car 

 is handsomely finished in black body 

 and red gearing with nickel trimming*). 



Speaking of Bemb and automobiles, 

 Mr, Pochelon, who is proprietor of the 

 Bemb Floral Co., recently had for a 

 local automobile manufacturer the larg- 

 est decoration ever put on a dinner 

 table in Detroit. The table seated 112 

 persons. It was a big oval affair that 

 occupied almost the whole of the ban 

 quet hall at the Pontchartrain hotel. 

 On the inner side, a hedge of privet 

 about eight inches high encircled the 

 table. From this hedge a boulevard 

 scene, interspersed with driveways, 

 sloped down from the table to the floor, 

 in the center of which was a circular 

 speed track, around which miniature 

 duplicates of all the Ford models put on 



the market from the beginning by that 

 company were continually running dur- 

 ing the evening. The cars, of course, 

 were filled with miniature men and 

 women and presented an animated 

 scene. In the center of the speedway 

 an illuminated fountain was continu- 

 ally playing, while leading to the speed- 

 way were various roads, the street 

 corners and cross roads being illumi- 

 nated with miniature electric street 

 lamps. Interspersed over this boule 

 vard scene were beds of flowers. 



A GOOD WEDDING DECORATION. 



One of the things often asked for 

 but not often seen is a really first-class 

 wedding decoration for a private resi- 

 dence when the «um to be expended is 

 not large. Making a satisfactory and 

 creditable showing within a modest 

 appropriation has taxed the ingenuity 

 of probably every fiorist in the coun- 

 try. When the bride's father says, 

 ' ' Go as far as you like, ' ' the florist has 

 a much simpler job, in a way, than 

 when the cost has to be held down to 

 merely a few dollars. And yet there 

 are a dozen, yes, a hundred, of the 

 modest decorations for every one where 

 the florist is given what the Fifth ave- 

 nue retailer likes to report as "a cartc- 

 blanche order. ' ' 



The retailer whose stock of acces- 

 sories includes a lot of wedding para- 

 phernalia has a great advantage over 

 the one who has none of these requi- 

 sites, when it comes to figuring on al- 

 most any sort of wedding decoration, 

 but the handicap is particularly heavy 

 on the smaller jobs. The retailer who 

 must start from "scratch" on every 

 job must necessarily buy more material 

 and do more work to achieve a satis- 

 factory result. Where a reasonable 

 amount of work is in sight it is wise 

 economy to have a complete stock of 



wedding gates, kneeling stools, newel 

 posts, velvet - covered ropes, plant 

 stands, pot covers, tall vases, and the 

 numerous other aids to the decorator 

 now provided by the thoughtful gen 

 tlemen who conduct the supply houses. 

 With a good equipment of these in 

 dispensables, the decorator can use 

 them over and over again in so many 

 different combinations that he not only 

 avoids all suggestion of sameness, but 

 actually has no two decorations alike 

 and gets so much use out of his pur- 

 chases that he need add no great sum 

 to any one estimate to cover the cost 

 of the stage effects he will employ. 



The illustration on page 13 of this 

 issue is reproduced from a photograpli 

 of a simple wedding decoration by Mrs. 

 Lord, who does a prosperous retail 

 flower business in the thriving city of 

 Topeka, iii the state of Kansas. It 

 used to be asked: "What's the mat 

 ter Avith Kansas?" In course of time 

 the answer came to be: "She's all 

 right." Those who give a little study 

 to the illustration will join in the 

 aflirmation. It is a decoration that is 

 well worth study by everyone who has 

 similar work to do. It is simple, yet 

 effective. It is capable of many varia 

 tions, yet the idea can be employed 

 with satisfactory result, using Beauties 

 or chrysanthemums in place of lilies. 

 It is a plan that can be amplified to 

 any extent desired by merely extend- 

 ing the decoration along the walls of 

 the room. 



One trouble with the average photo 

 graph that comes to The Review is 

 that the subject almost always is un 

 usual; either it is the biggest piece the 

 florist ever made, or the most expen 

 sive, or the most bizarre idea he ever 

 was called upon to carry out; rarely is 

 it a photograph of a simple, everyday 

 order, with nothing special about it ex 

 cept that, perhaps, it has had especially 

 happy treatment. The Review would 

 like to receive more such. 



LEADING DAHLIAS. 



The dahlias of Henry A. Dreer, Inc., 

 have been moved from Locust Farm t(» 

 Riverview this season. The transfer 

 has jjvoved successful, for, while the 

 dahlia roots at Locust Farm were so fine 

 as to leave little to be desired, the 

 plants there bloomed so late in the sea 

 son that many of the visitors who came 

 to see and compare the different va 



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Delivery Car Ui«d by L. Bemb Floral G)^ Detroit. 



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