that are different in kind or color, it can seldom be done successfully. To be sure, a mass of sweet-peas in all their variety of color is very lovely, but even they are more effective when separated into bunches each of one color. White flowers sometimes are the better for a touch of color, and white and yellow roses make a pretty combination, or white and delicate pink, but the strong contrast of white and dark red is not pleasing. Lilies should always have a vase to themselves, and the Ascension lily must under all circumstances stand alone. Neither the quality of the flower nor the associations connected with it permit of its being grouped with any other.
Vases
In the careful arrangement of flowers your object should always be to bring out their whole beauty, and let all else be secondary to that. One vase, though beautiful in itself, may not be at all suitable for holding flowers, while another, of no value as an ornament, will display them to their best advantage.
Colorless Transparent Vases
are always safe and in many cases absolutely necessary. Give your roses transparent vases or bowls whenever possible. If they have long stems, tall, slender vases, if their stems are short the clear glass rose-bowls are more suitable. Short-stemmed flowers do not look well in tall vases, and a flower should always stand some distance above the top of the vase. Someone gives as a rule that the height of long-stemmed flowers should be one and one-half times the height of the vase, but when the vase contains several, of course the height must vary.
Fig. [495].—A cylindrical jar.
The Vases and Bowls
need not be expensive, for they are now in the market at extremely low prices. Knowing what to choose you can find for a very moderate sum tall, slender vases with almost no markings, that will show the long stem and so display the entire loveliness of the rose. [Fig. 493] is one of the least expensive of these vases. Even the colorless glass olive-bottle, shaped like [Fig. 494], makes a pretty and suitable vase, and an ordinary fish-globe displays the rose-stems to far greater advantage than a cut-glass rose-bowl. A clear glass water-pitcher without tracing of any kind is another appropriate receptacle for these lovely blossoms. When the stems of any flowers have beauty of their own, they should never be hidden in opaque vases. So it is not for roses alone these transparent vases are suitable.
