View from our balcony of our elm trees.

Autumn in Melbourne.

Hello all,

We are lucky to have four distinct seasons in Melbourne, which suit ikebanists very well and right now we are enjoying a glorious Autumn.

The Sogetsu Annual Exhibition, with the theme 'Autumn', is now over and you can see photographs of the arrangements on our website. However, I'm including here photos of three of my students, who took part.

This hanging arrangement was done by Lucy Papas. She used
wisteria vines and loquat leaves, some of which she lightly
sprayed with copper.

Vicky Kalokathis used thick wisteria vine with
chrysanthemums and alstroemeria leaves

Nicole Mcdonald used nandina domestica nana
stems and russet coloured sedum

When surrounded with so much autumn foliage, it's hard to resist and, despite having very limited use of my left hand, I had to make some arrangements as per the photos below.

I use my Gingko very sparingly and here I have it with mahonia flowers. Arrangement
to be viewed from above.

Crepe Myrtle with oriental lilies in antique Japanese basket. This is placed under the
staircase and, even though the branches look like they are touching at the top, they
are not.

Wall arrangement of persimon branches and Chrysanthemums.
Unfortunately the photo doesn't show the depth. the stems 
extend 60 cm  forward. 

In our last class we had the theme 'Composition of Surfaces Made by the Massing  of lines. I made two examples.

Book Leaf Pine (Thuja occidentalis) stripped of leaves with
strelitzias, nandina flowers and berries

Spear grass sprayed silver and hydrangeas

Last week my very good friend Olga came to visit and brought me, among other things, some very tall gyamea leaves from her garden. Below is the result. It's a large arrangement placed under the stairs where it is viewed from the front and the side. Hence the two views. Unfortunately, it's hard to photograph with the stairs as background.

Front view

Side view.

That's all from me for now.
Emily