HOW TO MAKE A BOUQUET.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2369, 5 November 1881, Page 3

HOW TO MAKE A BOUQUET.

The following instructions for making a bouquet by “An Artist,” in the “Garden,” may furnish some useful hints to many of our readers :—“ For a flat bouquet, take first a mass of white, it may be a truss of white geranium, a double white stock, or a clematis, or for a small bouquet a bunch of the small double pyrethrum ; then scarlet or orange, as, for instance, a double scarlet geranium, Tom Thumb nasturtium, or any brilliant orange ; put any of these next the white on one side of it. Then take red, a bright rose, and the brighter the red the nearer it should ne to the white, so that other duller reds may bo beyond it (by red is meant all colors of crimson, but red is the true designation) ; place these on the other side of the white. Some very dark, almost black, flower may be also brought near the white, but only a very little of that color; and beyond the scarlet a very little bit of blue, such as that of an Emperor William pansy or or a little sprig of lobelia. Beyond the red have purple and yellow brought together, and on the other side picotees, which, although rich in color, are not prominent, though any flowers that have broken colors will do; beyond these again bring in blue in some mass, and your taller flowers, as penstemons (the blue kind makes an admirable background), dark colored fuchsias (some flowers or leaves of a brownish hue should interpose beyond the blue) ; and the last to introduce should be the maidenhair fern. Make this bouquet in your hand, and avoid too much formality, as the colors will generally arrange themselves with sufficient effect and force, though they may intermix a little. If a round bouquet, the white should he in the centre, with the above arrangement of colors in masses round the white. When your bouquet is large enough tie it round in the middle of the stems, out them off evenly, and drop it into a vase of water. Two principles may be followed in making up a bouquet: one, harmony and contrast of color, the other, force of light and shade; whichever is chosen to begin with, pure white is absolutely necessary—even if only composed of a single white flower it should be the largest mass of the whole.