Hello all,

Over the years I've noticed that miniature ikebanas are a favourite with many people. Non-ikebanists in particular. And, I have to admit, I love them too. It's important to note, however, that the principles of ikebana should be adhered to, even in such tiny arrangements. We should avoid dropping some small material in a little vase and call it ikebana. Mass, line and colour as well as asymmetry should be incorporated. Whereas I would normally use a variety of interesting little vases, in this case I chose to use the same tiny glass bottles.

I took photographs of the individual arrangements, below, to show the details.

In this next arrangement I used the seed pods of Port St Johns creeper, which is growing over the fence from my neighbours. This creeper produces clusters of pink, trumpet like flowers and later these long bean like pods, which can vary in size from about 15 cm to 45 cm in length. The glass vase is one I watched being hand blown, to my specifications, down in the Peninsula some years ago.

Vicky, also, found some of the same pods, which are much bigger, stronger and darker than mine. She made some lovely arrangements. Here's one.

A late bloomer. The gloriosa lily in this next arrangement surprised me by flowering so late. All the other plants in my garden have heavy seed pods and haven't had flowers for some weeks. I used umbrella grass stems to loosely follow the shape of the container.

And now, an early bloomer. The very first flower of my favourite camellia, the Kamo Hon Ami, had to be used. and what better accompanying material than pine.

This next material has me perplexed. I don't know if it is a very late bloomer, a very early one or just confused. It is a single flower that I found in my shrub of Japanese Flowering quince. My plant is usually very late to bloom compared to others I see around Melbourne, much to my chagrin, so this is odd, to say the least.

Vicky gave me some aluminium shavings and I used them with my trusty agapanthus. The second photograph was taken 17 days later. I love the colour change.

I must share with you a somewhat amusing problem I'm dealing with. I've had long, acrylic nails for some years, not just for aesthetics but, also, because they are much stronger that mine. I'm quite adept at doing all chores, including typing with long nails. With social distancing, however, I can't go to the salon and get them maintained as I normally do, so three of them have fallen off. Typing this post with three very short nails and seven very long  ones is quite frustrating. It has taken me twice as long as it would have because I keep going back and correcting mistakes. I hope I got all of them.

Bye for now,
Emily

Hello all,

Yesterday was Orthodox Easter and, under normal circumstances, there would have been celebrations with midnight service, families getting together, the obligatory lamb on the spit, coloured eggs being cracked and more food than could ever be consumed. Sadly, this year it was not to be. In our family, we managed to mark the occasion with the 'tsourekia' making and egg colouring, each family in its own home. However, on the day, each family produced one sweet dish, which we then shared by leaving at the doors of the rest of the family. It turned out that we each had four different sweets on the day. Absolutely delicious and we will worry about the weight gain later.

My contribution was a chocolate log which I've been making at Christmas since 1983  but which was a request from my daughter so I made it for Easter. In the topsy turvy world we're living in' who cares!

Chocolate swiss roll with chocolate cream filling and chocolate frosting

When I cleared up around my strelitzia nicolai, a number of leaves had to be discarded, except for one. It had such a delightful curve, it just had to be used for ikebana. It's a very big dried leaf and I struggled to find a container to do it justice. Here's how it went:

Once I settled on the container, I had to find a way to secure the leaf with its long and heavy stem in that container. I came up with using two thick skewers through the curved part of the spine and feeding them into the narrow opening of the container. I had a kenzan inside but that was for the flowers.

The container - 40 cm in diameter

The mechanics

The arrangement with dahlias, amaranthus and alstroemeria psittacina leaves.

I removed the stems of the Japanese anemones whose petals had dropped but had left behind these delightful green little balls. Again, they had to be used in this wall arrangement together with some pink roses.

There was a very tenacious visitor with the stems, that refused to let go when I tried to shake him into the garden. I ended up leaving the stem he was on outside so he could leave at his leisure.

An autumn arrangement - oranges, hydrangeas and maple

Fern and altissimo rose

Rosemary and dahlias

Bye for now,
Emily

EASTER IN THE TIME OF CORONA VIRUS

Hello all,

It has become a family tradition, albeit a recent one, for my daughter, Madeline, to organise an Easter egg  hunt every year for the children of family and friends. This year, however, we had to do things differently. So, I organised for the Easter Bunny  to visit our garden and hide some goodies. I, then, invited my grandchildren to come and find them. Sam and I stayed on the balcony overlooking the back yard and watched as the children came around the side of the house and enjoyed their Easter egg hunt. They left the same way they came without any contact with us. It was a compromise but better than nothing.

In these horrid times we're living in, technology plays a very important role in us staying connected. I belong to a number of WhatsApp groups, including one of my students. We share photographs of arrangements as well as other things of interest, which helps to feel less isolated.

Today my daughter, Madeline, my sister Lucy and I did a bake off on a three way Face Time. We made Tsourekia (traditional Greek Easter bread), which is a yeast based sweet bread and can be a bit of a hit and miss scenario. By doing this together, each of us in our own kitchen, we were able to support each other, especially Madeline, who had never done this before. All our Easter Breads were successful, to our great delight (and relief).

My tsourekia. The whole house smells wonderful!

Another Easter tradition is the colouring of eggs. The Greek tradition was to colour real eggs red and then compete to win each other's eggs. Things have changed and the chocolate eggs have overtaken the real ones is popularity. However, many of us love to play around with ways of decorating eggs. Here are mine.

These first ones are plain dyed real eggs done in the Greek way of boiling them in the dye.

The next ones were also boiled in the dye but they had leaves attached to them, held in place by old stockings.

The marbled ones in the next picture were done by wrapping brown onion leaves around the eggs, again, held in place by stockings and boiled in blue dye.

These next ones are very special because they were made and given to me by Renate Willenborg at Sogetsu Headquarters in 2014. We were attending classes together and I had brought with me red dye to colour some eggs. It turned out that we were doing a celebratory arrangement and I used my eggs. They were a big hit with the Japanese students and, after the class, I handed them out. Later, Renate presented me with hers, which were covered with Japanese paper and then glazed.

My arrangement in 2014

All of the above eggs have been done in previous years. Because of this forced isolation, I've had some time to try out another two methods of egg colouring.

For the first I used one of Sam's old silk ties and some printed Japanese silk. Unfortunately, I only had brown eggs, as, I believe, I would have had much better results if my eggs were white.

The next lot were not boiled so I had to remove the inside of the egg before decorating them. I had to pierce a hole on either end of the egg and blow out the albumen and yolk. This was a lot harder than I thought it would be and it took over an hour. I only broke one. I sprayed them gold and silver,  then glued the Japanese paper on them.

So, now for Easter ikebana arrangements.

I made the little wall basket, securing it on the hook by a little bit of wire, after last week's disaster.

Coloured eggs and Japanese anemones in self made basket

I, also, made a much more modern arrangement using bamboo. I, then, had to find a spot for it. As it is quite tall and delicately balanced, I didn't want to put it on any furniture, in case it was knocked over. So I put it on the floor, just below the basket.

Coloured egg, dahlias and crucifix orchids

The combination

I leave you with this little powder room arrangement. I LOVE SQUIGGLY GRASS!

The shadows  are deliberate

Stay safe and well.

Bye for now,

Emily

Strelitzia Reginae leaves and amaranthus flower in self made, ceramic container

Hello all,

It is with a heavy heart that I write this blog. I just broke one of my favourite vases. It was a wall vase which I bought in Japan many years ago and I can't replace. Now, I know, that in the greater scheme of things, this is a minor irritant. But I really loved that vase and I have no one to blame but myself. I'm normally very careful with my containers because they are precious to me and It's quite rare that I damage them. Today was one of those rare occasions. The vase was special because it could be used on the wall as well as on the table.

This was to have been my wall arrangement.

This is the compromise. I photographed it at an angle so
as not to show the broken top

I've had this succulent, the name of which I don't know, for a very long time and have never been able to use it. As most succulents, it is slow growing and I had avoided cutting it, until now. It's rather difficult to use but I, painstakingly, bent it to create this horizontal form. The container works well with the different sized holes at the top, holding the stem tightly in place. I used dahlias and alstroemeria psittacina flowers with it. The container is one I made myself a long time ago, The inspiration came from the ceiling of the domestic terminal at Sydney Airport. It was covered by a variety of, what looked like, air conditioning pipes, which gave me the idea for a container. I sketched it while I waited for our flight and, later, at home, made it.

Being stuck at home, I've had an attack of domesticity. Among other things, I wanted to make crabapple jelly, so I asked my poor, longsuffering husband to collect the crabapples. The rockery, on which this tree is growing, is uneven making the use of a ladder very difficult. Poor Sam had a little tumble. Fortunately, he only scraped his arm. Last year's attempt at jelly making was unsuccessful. It didn't set properly. I was determined this year to get it right and I did. Mind you, it took me all morning and all I had to show for it were 5 jars of crabapple jelly.

Whilst we were collecting the fruit I thought I should make at least one arrangement using the crabapple stems. After all, I had planted the tree for ikebana. The jelly was just a bonus.

The arrangement, below, looks simple enough but it required some mechanics to ensure the main stem stayed at the correct angle in this container with only a small hole at the top. I split the stem and fitted into it a strip of bamboo. I often use a bamboo strip for this sort of application because it is thin, thus fitting in the split, but also strong. It worked a treat here and the other materials could be fitted around it.

Crabapple branches and crucifix orchids

The branch in this next arrangement is from the golden elm that I pruned last week. It had a lovely horizontal form but I left it in the bucket too long and it lost most of its leaves. However, in the wet weather we've been experiencing, it grew quite a lot of lichen, sadly not visible in the photo. With the leaves gone, I was able to use the branch upright rather than horizontally. I deliberately left the few leaves on the branch and used four different coloured hydrangeas in a self made container. 

I made this next arrangement because I was pruning this fern that has self seeded next to the rainwater tank and is smothering one of my roses. I like the way it looks in this tall glass vase, as though it's floating. What was fascinating for me was Sam's reaction when he saw it. His comment was "That's Interesting!" He's so used to the house being full of ikebana arrangements, that he rarely comments. I wonder what attracted him to this.

Fern, succulent, dahlias and Japanese anemones

Bye for now,

Emily