PHLOX
Phlox Tower and Phlox Design
IN a great bunch of garden-flowers given me by a friend I found some
pink-and-white phlox (Fig. 87), and from it I made first a
Phlox Tower
As you know, the blossom is trumpet-shaped and flares at the open end
into five petals. The tube part is long and narrows to a point, so
it is easy to push one flower into another. That is what you do in
building the phlox tower. You pull the blossom off its stem and out of
the little green calyx which holds it, then you push the end of the
tube part into the round red eye in the centre of another flower as far
down as it will go. Then you push another blossom into that one and
build up until your tower is as high as you want it, or as high as it
will stand without toppling over. A bud stuck in the top flower makes a
good finish (Fig. 88).
Phlox Design
The design Fig. 89 was made by first putting three blossoms together,
sticking one inside the other as for the tower, to form the long side
sprays, and afterward arranging three blossoms below the side sprays
and one above with their stems meeting at the middle, as they are in
Fig. 89. On each side of the upper flower was placed a sprig of buds;
then the tube part of a blossom was cut off and the petal part fitted
in the centre of the design to cover the ends of the other flowers
where they met.
[Illustration: Fig.87 - Blossoms of the Phlox.]
[Illustration: Fig.88 - Build your Phlox Tower like this.]
The tube parts of three more flowers were cut away, and the petal parts
arranged in the position shown in Fig. 89. This formed a scattered
design quite different from any of the others made of flowers.
Touches of paste on the under part held all the flowers in place. The
phlox design is a good one to preserve by pressing.
The Tiger-Lily Leopard
[Illustration: Fig.89 - This phlox design should be pressed.]
From the brilliant-orange tiger-lily, with its dark-brown or black
spots, we are going to make a--tiger? No, a leopard. Tiger-lilies may
have spots, but tigers, you know, are striped.
It is really wonderful how much this little animal, made of parts of a
beautiful flower and broom-straws, looks like the stealthy, prowling,
wild creature which lives in Africa and Asia. The yellow coat of the
live leopard is covered with black spots, and so is that of our flower
leopard. The fierce living animal has a long tail that it moves slowly
back and forth in anger or when it threatens to attack another animal
or a man. Our little leopard also has a long tail which, if it does
not really move, looks as if it were just going to. But while the live
animal is ferocious and will kill, we can only pretend that of the
tiger-lily leopard. Though he looks dangerous, he cannot even nibble a
green leaf.
The illustration of the tiger-lily given here is a drawing of the one
from which the lily leopard (Fig. 90) was made. You will notice that
at the right of the flower (Fig. 91) there is the stem and pistil of a
blossom that has fallen apart.
[Illustration: Fig.90 - The stealthy, prowling Leopard.]
[Illustration: Fig.91 - The leopard is made from a Tiger Lily like
this.]
When we make the leopard we cut off this lily-stem close to the stalk,
leaving the pistil attached, to use for the back-bone and tail. Four
broom-straws, about an inch and a half long and sharpened at one end,
we use for legs. The pointed ends of two of the legs are pushed into
the stem at the front, and the other two in part of the pistil at the
back, as shown in Fig. 92. That makes the skeleton.
[Illustration: Fig.92 - This is the skeleton of the leopard.]
[Illustration: Fig.93 - The leopard's spotted coat.]
Now we have to fit on the skeleton the leopard's spotted coat. After
pulling the perfect flower apart we select the petal best suited for
this purpose (Fig. 93), and then take the curl partially out of it by
pressing it down on the table with our fingers. The tip of the petal
will have to be cut off because it comes down too far over the tail.
The blunt end of the petal will be the leopard's head, and it can be
rounded up and moulded with your fingers until it looks like the head
of the leopard in Fig. 90. Small ears of bits of broom-straw, pointed
at one end, we must stick in the head where they belong and then, in
order to make the coat stay in place, we will pin it to the skeleton at
the neck, in the middle of the back, and again at the tail, with fine
broom-straws. So we have the little leopard complete.