S', 
Floral Ornaments . 
13 
v* 
fronds, for the purpose. Suppose we take first a few orchids, or some of the 
lovely Eucharis Amazonica , and finish the whole with the biggest cabbage 
leaf the garden can supply! It will be evident thereupon that the forms 
of leaves that accompany flowers are fully as important as their colours, for 
assuredly we may find amongst the cabbages some very refreshing tones of 
verdure. Now it is really true that many bouquets, and vases, and homely 
jugs, filled with flowers, that are admirable up to a certain point, are ruined 
at last by the introduction of leaves that are as fustian jackets on bonny 
belles sitting at a tournament. Take away the cabbage leaf, and insert a few 
tufts of that very cheap and common striped grass of the cottage garden, 
the variegated Phalaris arundmacea . What a change! But you may have 
finished your bouquet with leaves of Begonia rex , or similarly large multi¬ 
coloured leaves, and have made it quite as hideous thereby as by the 
employment of a cabbage leaf. Take them away, and put in a bit of 
maiden-hair fern, or a few small portions of the fronds of the common brake 
(if it happens to be summer-time), or»any other of similarly elegant, bright, 
fragile-textured things, and the flowers will instantly acquire ten times, a 
hundred times, their former beauty. 
Large flowers are, generally speaking, not adapted for small bouquets or 
vases; such coarse things as paeonies are utterly unsuitable, and even roses 
are more acceptable if only half expanded, or fairly showing colour in the bud, 
than when full out and becoming loose with age and expansion. Severity of 
outline, too, is as objectionable as the employment of coarse subjects. A 
bouquet or a bunch should alike be elegantly negligent in configuration, a 
general contour distinctly suggested but not defined, the tendency to harsh¬ 
ness of outline which flowers regularly packed are sure to produce, broken by 
the uprising of green sprays of grass and fern, not obtrusively, as if the flowers 
were there simply to show them off, but modestly, and to afford a passing 
relief. To say that a geometric arrangement is never to be tolerated may 
appear superfluous, but really we have seen in many competitions at 
provincial exhibitions, flowers grouped in accordance with such a system,— 
a ring of yellow, a ring of scarlet, a ring of blue, and a central dot of white. 
Oh, horror, horror, to think that flowers should grow in the gardens of folks 
who can use them in this way ! 
The management of cut flowers will justify a few words of advice. In the 
first place, the flowers should be cut , not torn or pinched from the plants, for 
bruised or crushed stalks cannot take up nourishment from water properly, 
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