ARRANGING FLOWERS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 76, Issue 115, 18 May 1933, Page 2

ARRANGING FLOWERS

The arranging of flowers in a hobby in itself. Apart from the enjoyment of the blooms themselves, their colour and their shape, the achievement of line can give the utmost satisfaction to the artistic eye. One wonders if we could not take a leaf from the book of the Japanese, who have made the arrangement of flowers into a fine art. In Japan two hours and a-half were well expended in the arrangement of a single vase! Of course no one can hope for such leisure in the hurried Western world, nor for an equal devotion to the principles of beauty, yet a little study of Japanese ideas on the subject does give us new ground on which to work. Japanese taste is exquisite, but it is founded on certain precepts and principles. Colour is of less importance than form. The outline, the shape is the main thing. The Japanese will take the triple conception of Heaven and earth and of man, and will apply it to the arrangement of a few sprigs in a small vase. Heaven, the tallest sprig, towers above the others; earth, the lowest sprig, bends downwards; and midway between is man. Three branches of leaves set in a shallow piece of pottery can be arranged this way, and there is more beauty and grace in this simplicity of arrangement than in many a bunch of hard, brightly coloured carnations, thrust with the unsuitable foliage of asparagus fern into a narrow necked and unshapely silver vase. In arranging their flowers, the Japanese generally allow the stems to rise for four inches on parallel lines, and then they spread them out into their ordered and separate paths. They have mastered, by various methods, the art of bending the stems to the exact line required. Much can be done by peeling and cutting the stem or even by burning it, or by crushing it slightly, but care must be taken that the crushed or the peeled portion is kept well below the water-line, and does not soar into the air. A little plasticine is a great help in the arrangement of twigs and branches, and may be hidden from view, if the vase or jar is transparent, by the use of charmingly patterned and coloured pebbles. Strips of lead are also invaluable, one inch and a-half deep, and so pliable that they can be bent into any shape and support the flowers in any position. Glass flower supports, pierced with many holes, are also useful accessories, but within everybody’s pocket is the fork of a stick, picked in a country hedge, cut to the exact shape of the neck of the vase and jammed into it, and it will keep long stalked flowers more exactly in position. The majority of housewives might, with advantage, look through their collection of glass vases, and relentlessly eject those which arc badly shaped, unbeautiful in design, and unpractical for the arrangement of flowers. Nearly all narrow-necked vases are ugly, and for big bunches or tall flowers of any description of a vase, with a very wide, solid base, is desirable to avoid a top-heavy effect. With the exception, perhaps, of those old-fashioned garden favourites, pinks, sweet william, mignonette and wallflowers, which look their best arranged in bunches, and which are used mainly for their fragrance, flowers should never be crammed tightly into any vase.