Photo courtesy of Christopher James

My poorer quality photo

Hello all,

As I mentioned in my last post, our Ikebana International group held an exhibition in the Bourke Place Foyer last week. The photograph, above, is of my exhibit. I used aluminium louvres, to which I attached 'feet' for stability. I used two large strelitzia nicolai leaves, just as they were changing colour and wisteria vines, that I coloured black. I included the small picture with me in it to indicate scale. For photographs of the rest of the exhibition please go to Ikebana International Melbourne and click on Blog.

Lucy's Exhibit with an Aboriginal flavour

And here she is with her demonstration piece

My garden suffered a major disaster 10 days ago. Our magnificent, mature weeping willow fell. The trunk, which was growing at an angle, started to split after some particularly windy weather two days earlier. On the day in question, I was watching it as it continued to split and fall forward making very scary noises. Three quarters of the tree fell into our driveway, whilst the remainder was still standing. However, we didn't know how safe the standing portion was, so we called SES to come and secure it until we could engage a tree lopper to take care of it.

The heart breaking view of my beloved tree

Initially, we were going to have it removed completely, which would have left a large gap in my garden. But, thanks to an understanding and accommodating tree lopper, we were able to retain quite a lot of it, with thick branches jutting out of the garden like a giant spider. We are hoping that despite the partial split in the trunk, it will continue to grow. The photo, below, shows what it looks like now.

Of course, this was an ikebana opportunity not to be missed. So the senior students were asked to workshop willow.

I trimmed many side stems to reveal this interesting 'elbow' in the
branch and I removed as many leaves as I left on. The container
had to be heavy to hold the weight of the branch. My flowers
were roses and sedum

Nicole stripped the branches of leaves and used belladonna lilies

Vicky also stripped off the leaves, then twisted the stems into circles
and added a brightly coloured bougainvillea 

Lucy managed to balance this heavy branch on the ground and added
a  vase with dahlias

I leave you with this tall arrangement (1.3m), in which I used the left over stem from the strelitzia nicolai, that I used in my exhibition piece. The white belladonna created a natural mass to contrast the lines and added a delightful fragrance.

Bye for now,
Emily