My magnolia soulangiana in all her glory!

Hello all,
The photo of my magnolia, above, was taken from our balcony. In fact we enjoy the view of this magnificent tree from the family room, the ikebana room and the kitchen. That's exactly what I had in mind when I planted it there about 25 years ago. I guess the old saying of 'All things come to those who wait' is quite true.

And, of course, I made a number of arrangements using only magnolia, for it really needs no other material to complete an arrangement. Two examples are below.

Last week Sam and I felled one of the trunks of my very tall strelitzia nicolai because it was growing right up against the dining room window. When we were cutting it up I removed the dead flowers and discovered something quite beautiful. I'd never noticed the seed heads before because they are covered by masses of dead petals. Once I removed some of that dead material the woody seed pods were open into a three-petaled flower shape and revealed the bright orange and black seeds.

Close up of the seeds.

This is what the dead flower looked like when I had only partially removed the dead petals

And this is what it looked like after being cleaned and arranged.

I must confess that I have an aversion to arrangements made with only dry materials and, generally, avoid making them. However, in both of the above arrangements I tried to use some other fresh material but it simply did not work. Anything I used seemed superfluous. I contented myself with the thought that the vivid orange of the seeds, which is not visible in the photos, gives some life to the rest of the dry material.

At our last Sogetsu meeting the workshop was run by Emerald Leung, who set us the task of making an arrangement using only two types of materials, with leaves but not flowers, either branches with leaves and/or individual leaves. The aim was to accentuate the elements of line, mass and colour. Please go to Sogetsu Victorian Branch for photographs of Emerald's arrangements as well as those of other members.

I used large gymea leaves for line, a loquat branch, whose leaves created the mass
and for colour, the contrast of the dark green of the loquat leaves and the
lighter green of the gymea.

Jenny used stripped aspidistra leaves and spider plant (Chlorophytum Comosum)

I leave you with this picture of my gymea lily, which has two giant flower 'buds' (should I call them buds? It seems wrong when they are so big). Anyway, they are currently about 2 metres in height. I will keep you posted of their progress. Needless to say, I am seriously chuffed to have two such flowers growing in my garden.

Bye for now,
Emily