THANK YOU!

Hello all,

I want to take this opportunity to thank all of you for the honour you do me by following my blog. And, I would, specially, like to thank those of you who have taken the time to send me your feedback. It has all been positive, to date but, I suppose, people would be too polite to write anything negative.

Writing this blog is quite a commitment and requires a lot of time but it is, also, very rewarding. In order to have material to post, I have to create and photograph a variety of different arrangements and I have to double check the spelling of names of plants. I also have the advantage of the knowledge of my readers, who, very kindly, write and give me information that I may need. All of this means that I am learning and growing as an ikebanist at a much greater rate than I would have otherwise. So, as a 'thank you' I offer you the photographs of my herbaceous paeone flower, above. This plant has been growing for at least ten years but is quite parsimonious in its flowering. This year it produced only one flower, but what a flower! And, while I'm at it, if anyone knows its name, please let me know.

Here's how the arrangement, below, came to be. I found a large leaf of the strelitzia nicolai on the ground, having been forgotten there from when I last cut a flower from that plant. I picked it up intending to cut it up and put in the garden waste bin. But, when I looked at it more closely, I noticed that the parts of the leaf that were exposed to the sun, had dried a very rich brown colour, which contrasted beautifully with the green of the remaining of the leaf. Add to it the heavy brown stem and it was an arrangement begging to be made. I had to bend the stem of the strelitzia reginae to have it peaking through the cut in the leaf.

This is quite a large arrangement, measuring 1.2 m across. The ceramic vase is
from Headquarters

Below are two more arrangements with my squiggly ornithogalum. I have these plants growing in three large pots and I love them. They are beautiful, whether straight or curved. The only down side is that they have all flowered at the same time. However, they can be forgiven because they are quite long lasting as cut flowers

I have been wanting to use at least a small part of the gymea lily (dorianthus palmeri) because I certainly can't use the whole flower head, as it is too big and heavy. Plus, I like seeing the flowers in the garden. They attract the attention of every passer by as well as many birds.

This next arrangement has three elements that I, absolutely, love. Firstly, the glass plate came with a television that we bought many years ago. It was the base on which the set was to sit. However, since we had the TV mounted on the wall, the plate was superfluous. Lucky me! I must confess, I was happier about getting the plate than the TV.

I placed a shallow plastic container with a kenzan underneath and put the thin stems of the iris through the two holes to reach the container underneath. That's the second element I love - the Siberian iris with its electric purpley-blue colour and thin straight stems. It is quite ephemeral and the flower dies within a couple of days but a second flower opens straight after, making it last a little longer.

And the third element, this dried date palm remnant that I sprayed silver. Its squiggly lines make a great contrast against the straight stems of the iris.

I had a small bunch of spear grass, which had been bought for another purpose but wasn't used. I couldn't allow it to die in the bucket, hence the arrangement in the glass vase. The orange rose bud is called 'Lolita"

And, with Christmas around te corner and the hippeastrums in full bloom, I could not resist.

Bye for now,
Emily