Caring for Flowers

The flowers you place in your drawing room, Madam, pass through two stages of their life, and in each of them they need care and attention that can go far toward making your drawing room one of the loveliest, the most tasteful, and the best arranged; for flowers give the place in which they are set a special atmosphere, saturated with colors, fragrant scents, and natural beauty.

In the first stage — that is, while the flowers are still planted in your garden — you must, Madam, keep clearing the ground of parasitic weeds, and the plants must likewise be cleaned of the worms and insects that live upon them. If you can rid your garden of these harmful agents — the worms, the insects, and the weeds — you will have given your flowers the healthy opportunity to grow and bloom. Then feed the planted flowers with the water and chemical fertilizer they require.

And do not forget, Madam, to prune the plant, to give the flower the chance to grow with all its strength; for the useless branches and buds that may surround it absorb some of the nourishment and hinder the flower from full growth.

You must also take account of the seasons of the year, with their different temperatures. In spring, for example, you can plant most kinds of flowers. In summer, autumn, and winter, on the other hand, the flowers in your garden are limited to a few kinds, according to the climate that suits them. But with modern methods of care we can plant all kinds in all seasons. In the hot summer season, for example, we can plant the flowers that require coolness in one of the mountain regions raised to a certain height above sea level. In this way the plants are given the suitable temperature, and we profit by rare flowers that come before their natural time.

Modern science has been able to give us fresh blooming flowers, planted and grown in glass houses provided with every kind of ventilation, nourishment, and heating that flowers require.

As for the second stage I mentioned, it is when the flower is cut to be placed in a vessel of water inside the house. Here is my advice to help you keep your flowers as fresh as if they had been cut this very hour:

1 — Put cold water in the vase, with a piece of ice if the weather is very hot; this keeps the flower fresh.

2 — Provide the bouquet with the natural climate it is used to. The climate in which the flower grew may have been cold, while your house has artificial heating; do not be surprised, then, when your bouquet wilts in the shortest time.

3 — Cut the base of the stem on a slant, to ensure that the water reaches the flower by the quickest and easiest way.

4 — Change the water in the vase every 24 hours; better still if you can change it once every 12 hours.

5 — You will notice that roses, when cut from the garden, spoil quickly; but you can save them from wilting by sprinkling the rose with water or dipping it in water, and it will stay fresh — whereas the colored lily, or gladiolus, must not be touched by water at all, for the flower itself spoils in water.