Hello everyone,

And a very happy 2016 to all

I delayed publishing this post because I had hoped to be announcing the arrival of our granddaughter, who was due last week but who is stubbornly refusing to leave the comfort of the womb. So I decided to go ahead with this post and leave the announcement until the next one.

Most of the ikebana I do, outside of preparations for class, is opportunistic. That is, I work with material that I find at the time.

The next arrangement I made with this lush young pine I found growing by the side of the road on a recent trip to the country. It is quite big and heavy and this container was ideal, firstly because it is big enough and, secondly, because I already had some serious mechanics in it for a previous arrangement. 

You may remember this from my previous
post

This large vine arrangement was another opportunity, which could not be missed. Our new next door neighbour was cutting back the much overgrown wisteria from our common fence. By the time I became aware of it, he had already cut the pieces indiscriminately but I managed to get quite a few good ones that I joined together to create my wall arrangement. With it I have some dietes leaves and hydrangeas.

With this extreme weather we've been experiencing I managed to keep my hydrangeas from burning by covering them with old sheets and watering the whole plant, sheets and all, several times a day. Fortunately, we have large rain water tanks that allow us to do that.

These two palm leaves were also a lucky find and I made this arrangement, fitting the theme 'Only one kind of material'. I gave myself the challenge to use all of the two Palm leaves, so I created another three arrangements from the left overs.

 

With gloriosa lilies

Again with Gloriosas

With hydrangea

You may have noticed that all the flowers in this post are either hydrangeas or gloriosa lilies. I've already explained the reason for the former and for the latter, it is because they are tropical flowers and less affected by the heat. In contrast, my roses are cooked to a crisp. But then, there are always my trusted agapanthus.

We have several large Elm trees on either side of our back yard, which, unfortunately are infested by Elm Leaf Beetle. We treat the trees periodically but it seems the pests have weakened one of the trees to the point that some large limbs have broken. We called in David, our lawn mower man to cut and take away the branches. He, very kindly, cut some stems with his chain saw for me for ikebana. They have beautiful, almost iridescent lichen growing on them and, when I have some time I want to play with them. This next little piece, however, was just crying to be used. I put it in this container I made many years ago but which I use infrequently because of the narrow neck.

I leave you with another arrangement with 'Only one kind of material', this time with agave in another self made container.

Bye for now,

Emily