HOW TO MAKE A BOUQUET.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1081, 1 June 1882, Page 4

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 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 be to the white, so that other duller reds may be beyond it (by red is meant all colours 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 colour ; and beyond the scarlet a very little blue, such a«tha' of an Emperor William pansy or a little sprig of lobelia. Beyond the red have purple and yellow brought together, and on theother side picotees, which, although rich in colour, are not prominent, though any flowers that have broken colours will do; beyond these again bring jn blue in some mass, and your taller flowers, as pentstcmons (the blue kind makes an admirable background), dark coloured fuchsias (some flowers or leaves of a brownish hue should interpose beyond the blue) ; and the last to introduce should be the maiden-hair fern. Make this bouquet in your hand, and avoid too much formality, as the colours will generally arrange themselves with sufficient effect and force, though they may intermix a little. If a round bouquet, the white should be in the centre, with the above arrangement of colours in masses round the white. When your bouquet is large enough tie it round in the middle of the stems, cut 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 colour, 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.