Six Records of a Floating Life (Chapter two: Relaxation of Leisure 02)


    When I was grown up, I loved flowers very much and was very fond of training pot flowers and pot plants. Whe I knew Chang Lanp'o, I learnt from him the secrets of trimming branches and protecting joints, and later the art of grafting trees and making rockeries.

    The orchid was prized most among all the flowers because of its subdued fragrance and graceful charm, but it was difficult to obtain really good classic varieties. At the end of his days, Lanp'o presented me with a pot of orchids, whose flowers had lotus-shaped petals; the centre of the flowers was broad and white, the petals were very neat and even at the "shoulders," and the stems were very slender. This type was classical, and I prized it like a piece of old jade.

    When I was working away from home, Yun used to take care of it personally and it grew beautifully. After two years, it died suddenly one day. I dug up its roots and found that they were white like marble, while nothing was wrong with the sprouts, either.

    At first, I could not understand this, but ascribed it with a sigh merely to my own bad luck, which might be unworthy to keep such flowers. Later on, I found out that some one had asked for some off-shoots from the same pot, had been refused, and had therefore killed it by pouring boiling water over it. Thenceforth I swore I would never grow orchids again.

    Next in preference came the azalea. Although it had no smell, its flowers lasted a longer time and were very beautiful to look at, in addition to its being easy to train up. Yun loved these flowers so much that she would not stand for too much cutting and trimming, and, consequently, it was difficult to make them grow in proper form. The same thing was true of the other flowers.

    The chrysanthemum, however, was my passion in the autumn of every year. I loved to arrange these flowers in vases instead of raising them in pots, not because I did not want to have them that way, but because I had no garden in my home and could not take care of them myself. What I bought at the market were not properly trained and not to my liking.

    When arranging chrysanthemum flowers in vases, one should take an odd, not an even,number and each vase should have flowers of only one colour. The mouth of the vase should be broad, so that the flowers could lie easily together.

    Whether there be half a dozen flowers or even thirty or forty of them in a vase, they should be so arranged as to come up together straight from the mouth of the vase, neither overcrowded, nor too much spread out, nor leaning against the mouth of the vase. This is called "keeping the handle firm".

    Sometimes they can stand gracefully erect, and sometimes spread out in different directions. In order to avoid a bare monotonous effect, they should be mixed with some flower buds and arranged in a kind of studied disorderliness.

    The leaves should not be too thick and the stems should not be too stiff. In using pins to hold the stems up, one should break the long pins off, rather than expose them. This is called "keeping the mouth of the vase clear." Place from three to seven vases on a table, depending on the size of the latter, for if there were too many of them, they would be overcrowded, looking like chrysanthemum screens at the market.

    The stands for the vases should be of different height, from three or four inches to two and a half feet, so that the different vases at different heights would balance one another and belong intimately to one another as in a picture with unity of composition.

    To put one vase high in the centre with two low at the sides, or to put a low one in front and a tall one behind, or to arrange them in symmetrical pairs, would be to create what is vulgarly called "a heap of gorgeous refuse." Proper spacing and arrangement must depend on the individual who has an understanding of pictorial composition.

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