FLOWER DECORATIONS FOR THE HOME.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20798, 17 August 1929, Page 7

FLOWER DECORATIONS FOR THE HOME.

Flowers Best Suited for Display. There is great pleasure in raising garden cut flowers to be used in the house. Certain flowers are at their best in the garden and should be enjoyed there. Others seem especially adapted to bringing grace and beauty within doors. To go still farther there are blossoms and combinations that are at their best in particular environments and when placed in these bring out exquisite perfection nf harmony. Over a period of several years the writer experimented along this line trying out various types of bouquets in order to discover what was best suited to the needs of her home. A table set for breakfast with blue and white china on a German linen cloth in blues and whites was at its best with a centrepiece built up high of bachelor buttons, blue and pink and white. The container was a high, old-fashioned fruit dish in gold band china. Much foliage was used and a tall glass set in the dish lifted tlie flowers in the centre above their companions so that the whole gave much the same appearance of airiness and delicacy that bachelor buttons have when at home growing on their own hushes, Abundance of Beauty. A house guest who sat down to this table in the sunshine of a summer morning said many months later that its loveliness so lifted her thought in gratitude for the abundance of the simple beauties in the world around us that a burden of heaviness that had been weighing her down for many weeks disappeared. Such experiences show the gospel that flowers in our homes can sing and the reward that comes from loving care and effort spent to bring forth perfection of detail. Another happy combination all summer in that same house was forget-me-nots, pansies, and sweet alyssuin or mignonette in a low glass bowl on a walnut, desk. Again, double sunflowers were raised especially to fill a large old-fashioned brown vase which stood in a dark corner of a shady porch. Double sunflowers are merry chaps, much handsomer than their country cousins with the brown centres, and very decorative when used in the right environment. Their round fullmoou faces shone forth with such gaiety from their shadow surroundings that invariably guests who saw them would ask to take some home. A ■, corner was always found in the garden for an extra large variety of zinnias in salmons, burnt orange, and yellows, because they looked so well in a dark brown basket on a sun porch. Gold band china on white linen invited many experiments. But the loveliest combination of all in this particular room was daisies with pink snapdragon. These were so exquisite that they were the favoured ones that were ■always chosen on extra festive occasions. The combinations described are only suggestions. Many others might be mentioned that proved successful as well as special varieties of flowers that gradually crept from the seed catalogues into exactly their proper niche in the home. Other homes, other tastes, would ]ISIV6 0 til OP Hoods and he differently supplied. But this is one of the glories of all art—its infinite adaptability. However, when one has once discovered the fun it is to paint pictures with his garden for a palette he will never again be satisfied with Just the average hit-and-miss bouquet. Blue Delphiniums. Blue delphiniums in all shades, especially the azure, were very dear to the heart of the gardener. But, strange to say, no place was ever found in the house where they looked their best: So after many trials they were left in the garden to companion with the lilies, where those who loved them could enjoy them in the radiance of their rightful place. Christian Science Monitor.