154 FRITZ BAHR'S COMMERCIAL FLORICULTURE 



the artistic touch of the large 

 city florist. At the same time, 

 in order to keep up to date, meet 

 competition and keep on going 

 ahead. You can't do better 

 than to take advantage of every 

 possible opportunity to find out 

 what is going on in the big 

 cities, where, usually, the new 

 ideas in flower use and floral 

 arrangement originate. 



Materials Useful in Design 

 Work 



The farther away from a 

 big city you are located, the 

 more prepared you should be to 

 fin all kinds of orders, but es- 

 pecially such as you are apt to 

 receive for funerals. It is always 

 well to have a stock of different 

 sized wire designs in wreaths, 

 piUows, crosses or lodge em- 

 blems. There used to be a time 

 when these designs, nicely Hned 

 with tinfoil, served as suitable wall decorations for the flower 

 store, but it didn't last long and today no first class shop displays 

 anything to remind a visitor of funerals. Store your designs out of 

 sight where they won't rust. Have at hand an uptodate design book 

 of floral arrangements to show to those interested and always carry 

 a good supply of green and brown Magnolia wreaths. 



Personally, I don't approve of set designs in which the flowers 

 in order to show up have to be wired on toothpicks. No matter how 

 well arranged they are, there can be nothing really artistic about 

 such pieces and the sooner we get away from them the better. 

 While funeral work means much to us today in the way of business, 

 let us keep on educating the public to use flowers for themselves 

 and their friends while alive. The day will come when we won't 

 have to wait for them to die in order to get orders. We are getting 

 away from set and stiff designs as the use of baskets filled with 

 flowers is becoming more popular for funerals. A spray of loosely 

 arranged flowers is also more becoming, but of all formal pieces 

 the wreath is, to my mind, the most appropriate. 



To come back to Magnolia leaves and wreaths made from 

 them, these are among the most popular designs used today. It 



Fig. 51. — ^A Floral Design Properly 

 Outlined. A.s important as anything 

 about a set floral design are correct and 

 welL proportioned outlines so that one 

 doesn't (as is often the case) have to 

 guess at what it is supposed to represent 



