Hello all,
The photographs, above, are of my Japanese flowering apricot (Prunus mume), which is somewhat confused, as it has brought out its blossoms before it has completely shed its leaves. It brings me great joy to see the delicately fragrant blossoms appear at the beginning of each winter, at a time when the garden is quite bare. The  hanging bird feeder is for the rainbow lorikeets.

For my arrangements, below, I removed the remaining leaves from the branches that I used to showcase the blossoms.

With nerines

With camellias. The buds are still quite tight

Our recent Sogetsu workshop was presented by Akemi Suzuki on the theme - 'Using Various Locations' from Book 5. It was challenging finding unusual locations in the meeting hall but at the end of the session, some  fascinating places were used.

By the time I arrived at the meeting, the position I had planned to use was taken, so I went into the kitchen, and  used the drawer, after emptying it of its crockery. I used two small, modern, ceramic containers - one on the bench and one inside the drawer. For the lines I used horsetail (equisetum japonicum) because they are hollow, allowing me to insert the bright pink stems of the amaranthus to add another dimension. To complete the arrangement I used two crucifix orchids.

Close-up of the two different stems 

Lucy placed her arrangement at the corner of the top of the piano. She used
umbrella grass stems and flowers that she trimmed for a modern look

Nicole used a basket on an overturned chair. Her materials were
hydrangea, nandina berries and asparagus fern

Please go to Sogetsu Victoria for more photographs.

I recently finished removing the dead flowers from my agapanthus. This is not a job that can be completed in one go, as there are so many of them. In fact it took several "go's". As always, when I'm pruning, I found material to use for arrangements. In the first one the agapanthus is still green, even though the flowers are long gone but it was the shape of the stems that most attracted me. I used with them my last hydrangea and some nandina domestica nana at the back. In the second arrangement, I used two dried agapanthus flowers, which I sprayed 'primrose yellow' and added cotoneaster berries in this interesting vase with holes on either side.

Bye for now,
Emily