File:Florists' review (microform) (16680262042).jpg

Title: Florists' review (microform)
Identifier: 5205536_26_1 (find matches)
Year: [1] (s)
Authors:
Subjects: Floriculture
Publisher: Chicago : Florists' Pub. Co
Contributing Library: University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

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20 The Weekly Florists' Review. May 10, 1910.
FILLING CEMETERY VASES.
An Important Item With Many.
Memorial day will soon be here and it brings a busy time. Not only do our customers want their vases filled in the cemeteries, but there is often the desire expressed: "I want our flower beds and veranda boxes filled by Decoration day." Those who do what we call a cemetery business, and fill 300 or 400 vases, know what a laborious business it is. Some years ago there were several kinds of vases and baskets used for this purpose. There were cast-iron vases, wire baskets or stands and rustic baskets. Now there are few of any kind but the iron vases and they certainly have the best appearance, as well as being practically everlasting. A coat of paint annually and they are always new.
There is rather too much sameness in the painting. Ninety-five per cent or more are painted white. While any gaudy color would be quite out of place, if more were painted a deep green and others a stone color it would relieve the monotony.
Do It at the Greenhouses.
Time was when we used to send wagons loaded with plants to the cemetery and other wagons with soil, and a gang of men, and attempt to fill fifty vases in a day. We have got over that, for there was too much waste of material. Plants were broken and wilted and the battered plants that came back made too big an item. There are a few old-fashioned iron vases and, of course, some large stone vases that have to be filled at the cemeteries, but nearly all iron vases are of the reservoir type and the top, or bowl, can be lifted off and brought to the greenhouses and much more satisfactorily filled. The work can be done much better, with no waste of plants, and you have the contents of the whole greenhouses at your back. There may be a little more teaming this way. but, all things considered, it is by far the better plan.
The Profit.
We never considered that there was much margin of profit in this vase filling business, yet a change in style of late years has been somewhat in our favor. Ten years ago, with few exceptions, the vases were filled with a mixture of plants, with vines around the edge. Often have we counted the plants and found that at wholesale prices they would cost as much as we got for the filling, soil, moss and labor thrown in. But remember that in those cases we largely used what we had and so cleaned up on everything, and that makes a wonderful difference.
Did you ever think of the difference in the profits of a place where all the stock is in salable shape and the benches emptied and one where one-third or one-half the plants, for some reason or other, are left unsold! It is the difference between success and failure: Every foot of your bench room must yield you some profit, if it does not, it has dragged down the profit of the space that did pay.
Red Geraniums Mostly Wanted.
But to return to the vases. The great majority are now filled with one kind of plant, mostly geraniums. There are several reasons for this. They are always in bloom, are neat and compact and do not suffer from a little neglect of water. They make a bright, gay spot. S. A. Nutt is such an admirable variety for this purpose that it is overdone. The individual owner of a cemetery lot may be charmed with his brilliant mass of scarlet blooms, but when there are forty similar ones within 100 yards, the effect is not pleasant. There should be more pink, white and salmon. Beautte Poitevine, Mrs. Frances Perkins and John Doyle are all fine for the purpose. The green vinca is good for edging the scarlets and the variegated vinca for the pink and salmon shades. A dwarf white geranium is fine for Mrs. Perkins and Mme. Salleroi is often wanted as an edging for Nutt. A combination that many want is a pink geranium for the center with an edging of the pink ivy-leaved geranium.
Other Good Material.
Large vases are sometimes filled with dwarf, free-flowering cannas of one variety, such as Tarrytown, the Express, or Souvenir de Antoine Crozy. Large stone vases are sometimes filled with Caladium esculentum, but these vigorous rooting plants should never be used in combination with other plants, for they quickly starve them out. Begonias of the Vernon type make pretty vases and where there is some shade during the hottest hours we have filled vases with tuberous-rooted begonias, and rich and choice they look.
This doesn't pretend to have exhausted the list of available plants for this purpose, but always recommend the filling to be of one kind of plant. There is more profit for you and it is sure to be more satisfactory to your patron. If your customer wants scarlet geraniums, it will have to be so, but encourage variety. It is not the beauty of one lot that should please the visitor to the city of the dead, but the generally pleasing appearance of the whole grounds.
Mixed Plants.
If the mixed vase is still preferred, there is considerable choice of material. For a center plant there is nothing equal to that cast-iron plant, Dracæna indivisa. It not only exists, but it grows and endures the fierce sun and drying winds. Then there are the geraniums, coleus, achyranthes, variegated geraniums. Begonia Vernon, acalypha, Boston fern, centaurea. fuchsias (in the shade), petunias, etc. About the only palm that would be good for a center plant in place of the dracæna would be the phænix. They will stand the sun and the wind.
It is neither fair nor wise to put in plants that will make a fine show for a week or two and then be out of bloom for the whole summer. Such plants as the white feverfew or show pelargonium will not do, or any plant the flowering season of which is short. Nearly every cemetery has situations where any plants will thrive and other bleak, windy positions where only the hardiest plants will preserve a decent appearance. This must be studied.
Drooping Plants.
All these mixed vases will want an assortment of drooping plants and there
Text Appearing After Image:
Bedding Plants at a Rochester Residence.
Garden walk edged with Mme. Salleroi geranium: back of these Gen. Grant geranium, delphiniums, phloxes, etc., and shrubs.

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