Uses For Vegetable Leaves

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29748, 15 February 1962, Page 2

Uses For Vegetable Leaves

Many types of vegetables can be as colourful and attractive in a floral arrangement as flowers themselves.

A possible use for red cabbage leaves, in a combination with hydrangeas, was described in a previous article The sketch below shows beetroot leaves, together with a cluster of their red stalks, arranged with a single head

I By

JAY GEEI

of deep puce coloured gladiolus. The arrangement was done in a small, bowl-shaped container placed inside an oblong pewter box, popular for making in hobby classes in the 1930’5. As an alternative to this, a large cigar box might be used and any tin. shallow cup or small vase could be employed as the inner container. This, however, should not be visible when the arrangement is completed.

Designed to be placed on a tab’ - ' or a sideboard against a wall, the arrangement would be shown to particular advantage if it had a mirror behind it Fill the small container with crumpled two inch and a half mesh wire, firmly anchoring it over th? sides to hold the weight of the gladiolus Add the water and put the container In the box Break off the bottom of the gladiolus so that the remaining top half of the stem is about one and a half times the length of the box. Place this longer piece in the wire upright at the back of the container (figure 1) Then to one side add the bottom half of the gladiolus stem in an almost horizontal position (figure 2). To fill tn -t the base and give added weight and width, place five or six leaves of beetroot among the flowers with their stalks in the water Beetroot Stems Now take a small bunch of beetroot stems (having discarded the leaves) and trim them all to about the same length—say five or six inches. Bind the bunch together with fine florists’ wire or cotton and place it m the water on the opposite side to the lower section of the gladiolus stem (figure 3). In this arrangement, the colouring in the veins of the beetroot leaves emphasises the puce tonings of the gladiolus and the addition of the stems provides a variation in the over-all form and texture. (Copyright Reserved.)