Flower show

“ It is so strong and hardy, notable for its heavy foliage which makes a splendid shade and in the fall is a mass of rich crimson. We have grown to think of morning glories as a pretty, small flower that grew in our grandmother's garden. Many of us have not realized that they [Pg 118] have been developed until now they show gigantic bloom as large as the moon flowers. They have wonderful coloring, marking and variations of indescribable beauty. As a flowering vine they cannot be surpassed, the flowers being borne by the hundreds and of enormous size, measuring often five and six inches across. ”

“ LADY CHRYSANTHEMUM AT HER TOILET.
1. The flower is cut.
2. A part of the seedy eye is taken out.
3. Deformed and misshapen petals are removed.
4. The petals are then curled.
5. The bloom is finally brushed up.
As a matter of fact the best bloom that ever grew is one thing on the stalk and altogether another in the show box. If you saw some of the magnificent prize-winning and highly commended blossoms which are the feature of the great annual shows before they had been through the deft hands of the floral barber you would fail to recognise them. Glorious they are in their natural state ”

“ I do believe in flower-shows and horticultural societies when they are calculated to increase the love and appreciation of flowers as flowers, rather than to call attention to the skill of the florist in producing freaks which are only attractive as curiosities. ”

“ One cannot write of the garden in July without a word of the Roses. Besides the bushy garden Roses, and the kinds of special charm, such as Damask, Provence, Moss and China, those that most nearly concern the garden for beauty and pictorial effect are the rambling and climbing Roses that flower in clusters. ”

“ These are the supreme moments of the spring, consecrated to the loves of bird and blossom. Every little winged form that scarcely bends the twig has its all-consuming passion, and every tree its wedding of the flower. Out in the orchard the apple-trees are laden in veritable domes of pink-white bloom, as if by the rare spectacle of a rosy fall of snow, and from among the dewy petals the army of bees give forth their low, continuous drone—that sympathetic chord in the universal harmony of spring. ”

“ Can words describe the fragrance of the very breath of spring--that delicious commingling of the perfume of arbutus, the odor of pines, and the snow-soaked soil just warming into life? Those who know the flower only as it is sold in the city streets, tied with wet, dirty string into tight bunches, withered and forlorn, can have little idea of the joy of finding the pink, pearly blossoms freshly opened among the withered leaves of oak and chestnut, moss and pine needles in which they nestle close to the cold earth in the leafless, windy northern forest. ”

“ The flowers are so arranged, that they appear to stand in a basket suspended over the surface of a pool of limpid water, in which the Victoria Regia and other similar plants are already floating. Nothing can be more exquisite or artistic in effect than the manner in which the various flowers are grouped. The bouquet comprises specimens of almost every flower known to the botanist, from the simple honeysuckle of the cottage garden, to the rarest and most valuable exotics of the East. ”

“ Messengers from her court were sent into strange lands, and commanded to bring her majesty rare and wonderful flowering plants to fill her garden with a wealth of bloom.
"It must be a garden fit for a queen," she said to those who were sent at her bidding.
So great was this queen's love of flowers that she ordered her servants to keep a bouquet in every room of the palace during the flower season. And every morning her handmaidens gathered the choicest blossoms and placed them upon a table in the queen's own room. ”

“ To name all the blushing subjects so fairly representing the rich and wide domain of Flora, would be far less easy of accomplishment, of enumeration, than to say that queen roses—the English rose—the delicate, the beautifully clothed lily—the crimson fuchsia—the acacia, and gorgeous tulip—the Victoria Regia, in all its stages of development, bud, blossom, flower,—were as the realities of stilly life, which seemed to say, in the expressive language of flowers—"put aside from us our glassy veils, remove our crystal shrines, that we may nod kisses to the wooing zephyrs." ”

“ She steps out of the pavilion while speaking, and he attends her. As they walk silently on he gathers a flower here and there, the rarest that blow in the garden, and putting them together they grow into a graceful bouquet before they reach the house. ”

“ There are brightly draped little booths, erected near all the finest view-places, where tea and saké and little cakes, stamped or iced in the image of the festal bloom, can be had; and there are sprays of the blooms for sale—real ones that seem artificial, they are so perfect, and artificial ones that seem real, for the same reason; and toys, and little lanterns, all reminiscent of the Cherry flower. And still are verses in praise of the blossoms hung on the boughs in the old-time way, written by anyone—the man in the street, perhaps. ”

“ You take a Lily-of-the-Valley from its vase, attracted irresistibly by its scent, and find it fast set in a corsetière of steel—each leaf and stalk, almost each separate blossom, wired. This gives you a horrid feeling; you idly untwist the cruel bonds, and then the poor flower droops or falls to pieces.
In the ballroom dreadful things are suffered by the Roses. Fancy a curtain all made of these lovely flowers, wired together in long trails to match the festoons that wave softly overhead! ”

“ To most people, and more particularly to most women, one of the chief uses or functions of a garden is to provide flowers to be cut for the decoration of rooms. But I hold that a flower cut from its plant and placed in a vase is as a scalp on the walls of a wigwam—a trophy showing how one more beautiful plant has been defeated and victimised by its powerful and tasteless owner. ”

“ From the tops of omnibuses the first Violets are seen. Anemones have their turn, and Mimosa, and Cowslips, and Roses soon glow in the midst of the traffic, and elegant Carnations in their silver grass, and great piles of Asters. So we may read the year. All through the grey and desolate Winter these flower women hold their own, through cold and rain, and pale Winter sun they keep the day alive with the glowing colours of flowers. I often wonder, as I see them sit there so patiently, if they know the joy they give the passer-by, or if they are more like the rocks on whom flowers grow by nature. ”

“ Fill a tall jar with spires of larkspur of the purest blue known to garden flowers. Unless the sun shines fully on them they seem to swallow light; mingle with them some stalks of white foxgloves, Canterbury bells, or surround them with Madonna lilies, a fringe of spirea, or the slender Deutzia gracilis, more frequently seen in florists' windows than in the garden, [Pg 354] and a new meaning is given the blue flower; the black shadows disappear from its depth and sky reflections replace them. ”

“ This garden is one of the best things in the truly wonderful floral show at the Exposition. The flowers are massed as we always dream of seeing them in the fields,—a dream never quite so well realized before. The areas of the court in the Exposition's opening weeks were solid fields of daffodils, thick as growing wheat, with here and there a blood-red poppy, set to accent the yellow gold of the mass. Other flowers have now replaced these in an equal blaze of color. ”

“ The bright- hued blossoms seemed to make her oblivious for a moment of the darkness and corruption to which she was so soon to consign her priceless treasure. The child's sweet face, even in death, reminded me that the flowers of the field and garden, however lovely, are all outshone by human beauty. What floral glory of the wild-wood, or what queen of the parterre, in all the pride of bloom, laughing in the sun-light or dancing in the breeze, hath a charm that could vie for a single moment with the soft and holy lustre of that motionless and faded human lily? ”

“ The still more exquisite sweetness of orange blossoms is wafted towards us, as a gipsy flower-girl passes through the groups, carrying many a mysterious bouquet, of which the flowers tell a perhaps too sweet and too dangerous love-tale to the fair receiver. ”

“ Try a bed of these ever-bloomers for a season and you will never afterward be without them. Other flowers will rival them in brilliance, perhaps, and may require less attention, but—they will not be Roses! One fine Rose affords more pleasure to the lover of the best among flowers than a whole garden full of ordinary blossoms can, and this is why I urge all flower-loving people to undertake the culture of the ever-blooming class of Roses, for I know they will give greater satisfaction than anything else you can grow. ”

“ Even human Beauty, the Queen of all loveliness on earth, engages Flora as her handmaid at the toilet, in spite of the dictum of the poet of 'The Seasons,' that "Beauty when unadorned is adorned the most."
Flowers are hung in graceful festoons both in churches and in ball- rooms. They decorate the altar, the bride-bed, the cradle, and the bier. They grace festivals, and triumphs, and processions; and cast a glory on gala days; and are amongst the last sad honors we pay to the objects of our love. ”

“ Not the stiff standard rose tree of an English garden, with its few precious blossoms, to be looked at from a distance and admired with respectful gravity. No: in this garden the roses grow as they might have grown in Eden—untrained, unpruned, in enormous bushes covered entirely by magnificent blossoms, each bloom of which would have won a prize at a rose-show. ”

“ People who own fine gardens are nowadays unwilling to plant the old "Summer Roses" which bloom cheerfully in their own Rose-month and then have no more blossoming till the next year; they want a Remontant Rose, which will bloom a second time in the autumn, or a Perpetual Rose, which will give flowers from June till cut off by the frost. But these latter-named Roses are not only of fine gardens but of fine gardeners; and folk who wish the old simple [Pg 469] flower garden which needs no highly-skilled care, still are happy in the old Summer Roses I have named. ”

“ It is merely a bit of enclosed and humanised natural beauty, a place where one may quietly enjoy delightful flowers and delightful fragrance without the jarring condition of viewing behind the scenes all the time that the performance is being enacted. Every flower in the garden was originally planted by my friend, and has been regularly watched over and tended by him ever since, yet not one but looks as though it had been planted [19] at the creation of the world and had been subject only to the forces of Nature all its life. ”

“ Later in the season, we become critical—we reject the full-blown flower for the half-open bud, but just now we are eager to feast our eyes upon a rose—a true, perfect rose—with all her beauties opening to the light, all her silken petals unfolding in rich profusion about her fragrant heart. ”

“ We do not hesitate to pronounce it the finest Rose in existence for summer blooming, as it will make a large growth and is loaded with its glorious blossoms from May until November. For winter blooming it has no equal in beauty or profusion. Just the Rose to train up in a conservatory or bay-window, where its exquisite blossoms will show to wonderful advantage every day, summer or winter. Quite hardy, and will produce more flowers than a dozen ordinary Roses. ”

“ The strong shoots of last year will produce a large cluster of flowers from almost every eye, and as a profuse flowering double white climbing rose we have seen none to surpass it. It grows freely, the foliage and wood pure green, leaves much nerved. ”

“ From the idea of excellence attached to this Queen of Flowers arose, as Thomas Moore observes, the pretty proverbial expression used by Aristophanes--you have spoken roses, a phrase adds the English poet, somewhat similar to the dire des fleurettes of the French.
The Festival of the Rose is still kept up in many villages of France and Switzerland. On a certain day of every year the young unmarried women assemble and undergo a solemn trial before competent judges, the most virtuous and industrious girl obtains a crown of roses. ”

“ House-cleaning, sewing and gardening crowd upon us, when the bright days come, and one of the three is sure to be neglected by the busy women if plans are not made for each work beforehand. Let me beg all our flower-loving women not to deny themselves the comfort, rest and happiness that flowers alone will bring them throughout the long summer days because they feel the time cannot be spared to attend to the planting in early spring. ”

“ Just at the time that it begins to gather together its flowering energies the best of our season fails, and the plant must soon fail too, if not immediately taken up and placed in a well-lighted and warm greenhouse. If plunged out in a large pot or tub during the summer, it may be taken up without injury, and will in all probability flower under glass in the autumn, and prove a magnificent ornament. ”

“ If we follow the same plan in the arrangement of our flowers indoors we shall realize their decorative qualities to the utmost. So we may consider it a safe rule to follow in arranging flowers,—to use only one kind of flower, with its stems and leaves, arranging them loosely, rather than to have many in a compact grouping. One single, long-stemmed rose, with its beautiful foliage, in a tall, slender glass is more decorative and gives us more pleasure than a dozen roses stripped of their foliage and crowded into a small vase. ”