Bringing the spring indoors

In war-time more than any other time we need

the brightness of flowers around us,

especially spring flowers with their promise of

new hope and new life.

No doubt you are not content to buy an odd bunch of flowers 

and stick them haphazardly around the room.

(Perish the thought!)

What an opportunity spring flowers give us

of finding new arrangements that enchant the eye 

and cheer the spirit.

Get four or five common brown oven-ware dishes,

(Bother - I only have the superior sort)

fill them with stones and completely

cover them with freshly picked moss.

These make the foundations which you can use

time after time.

(This is fortunate as our lawn is entirely moss now.)

Each is like a round green cushion which

you can embroider with different colour flowers

like some beautiful piece of stitchery.

one can be patterned with purple and yellow crocus,

another with scillas or chionodoxa,

another with primroses and violets.

Over the top of some of your cushions

gently arch a spray of catkins.

A narrow drift of spring flowers

along the top of a sideboard or bookcase

is another novelty.

Begin with a fairly large open vase

holding branches of blackthorn, catkins

and sturdy outdoor daffodils.

Graduate this to four of five shallow dishes

containing shorter stemmed flowers like

hyacinths, or pheasant eye narcissus;

thence to polyanthus and other small blooms.

( I would like to use the word thence more often.)

A basket of flowers for the dinner or

luncheon table is a refreshing idea.

Stack a plain wicker basket with mimosa, anemones,

a bit of early lilac and a few short headed tulips.

Never be afraid to try out different flowers and shrubs together.
It's fashionable to mix them.

Tulips and flowering-currant are lovely together

in a plain pottery jar;

pink prunus with palm in a ginger-jar.

A round bowl is lovely massed with lilies of the valley

or white violets with a posy of purple violets in the centre.

Grape hyacinths are beautifully set off by a surround

of cabbage leaves. Yes - cabbage leaves!

Their blue green is perfect with the flowers.

Daffodils and their foliage look superb

in a copper urn with the spout facing the wall.

Pewter and zinc are just right for the dancing daffodils too.

That Victorian silver cake basket your mother gave you -

(an oversight on my mother's part I'm sure)

it makes a lovely centre-piece for the dining room table

crammed with tiny spring flowers, edged,

if you wish, with a prim lace d'oyley!

There is more, but I think this is plenty to be going on with.

The full article may be found in the April 1940 issue of

Available at all good stationers.
Get thee thence.