Hello all,

When I went out to my compost bins this afternoon, I was greeted by this sight (photo above). It's of the viburnum opulus in the foreground and what's left of the buttery yellow leaves of the ginkgo biloba in the background. Having deposited my compostables in the bin, I proceeded to cut some of the viburnum for an arrangement, below.

Viburnum opulus. mahonia flowers and aeoniums

I was asked recently to make two arrangements for a client, wanting to honour her partner's mother, who had just passed away interstate. The brief I received was as follows :

"My partner’s mum has sadly just passed away - in Queensland so he could not get there and cannot attend the service. We are in Melbourne. 

She was an ikebana master and I thought it would be nice to give him an ikebana arrangement instead of a ‘normal’ arrangement and also so we can display it while streaming the service. Hopefully it will help bring a little touch of her to him given he cannot be present."

It was an absolute honour for me to make the arrangements for the service of an ikebana master. (The last time I did that was when we lost Hazel McNaught and I helped with the flowers for the chapel). The arrangements had to be delivered to Flinders, over an hour's drive away, which meant that I had to employ some complicated mechanics to ensure that they arrived in one piece. Thankfully, they did, apart from a small adjustment. Here they are:

Naturalistic arrangement using sprayed azalea branches, disbud chrysanthemums
and cotoneaster berries in a resin container

Modern arrangement in glass container, using umbrella grass stems creating surfaces,
chrysanthemums, lisianthus and nandina domestica nana

The client seemed genuinely delighted with the arrangements, making the whole exercise satisfying and worth while.


Just like a kid with a new toy, I couldn't wait to use this new container, an op-shop purchase. I'm ashamed to admit that the sprayed corky elm branches have been sitting beside the garage in between the clivias for weeks, waiting to be put away. I was looking for some material to use vertically and there they were.

Corky elm, lisianthus and nandina domestica nana

And here are a couple of very tall arrangements. The first one was made because, whilst clearing all the dead leaves around my strelitzia reginae, I found this bent leaf. It's interesting because the stem and part of the leaf is green whilst the rest is dry. The rose is called 'Lolita'.

I made the second arrangement so that I could use the proteas which I cut from my son's neighbours' garden. With permission, of course. I found these partially open flowers quite charming. Store bought ones are always fully open and the stems dead straight.

Strelitzia reginae leaf and rose

Sprayed palm inflorescence and proteas

I leave you with this very simple but, for me, very pleasing camellia arrangement.

Bye for now,
Emily

Autumn arrangement using mollis azalea, hydrangea and pomegranates
from Toula's garden.

Hello all,

Some years ago I made the mistake of planting Fluffy Ruffle fern (Nephrolepis exaltata) in a garden bed at the far corner of the garden. I now know how invasive it can be, as it had taken over the whole garden bed and was encroaching on other beds. So, when I organised a garden waste collection by the council, I removed almost all of the pesky things and got rid of them. But I would not deserve the term 'ikebanist' if I didn't keep some fronds to play with. Having this rare opportunity of an abundance of material meant that I could workshop it.  So here are the arrangements that I completed. There were others that were not successful but they were a very important part of the learning process. In this first arrangement I stripped most of the leaves because I wanted to feature the thin, dark brown stems that picked up the colour of the container.

Front view of wall arrangement with
hydrangeas

Side view of wall arrangement

For the next arrangement, I, also, stripped most of the leaves from the fronds to reveal the stems and curved them very carefully because they kink easily. I used crucifix orchids because they, too, have thin stems which I was able to blend in with the fern stems.

Here I stripped the fronds from both sides, leaving only a fraction of the leaves intact, creating a kind of hood over the container. Speaking of the container, this one is very old and hasn't seen the light of day for a long time. A case of 'out of sight, out of mind', as it was in its box on a high shelf in the store room. Flowers are scarce in my garden at the moment, so the last of my altissimo roses had to be employed here.

And the last one, using two containers with nandina domestica nana, green coloured in one container and autumnal colours in the other.

You may remember this arrangement using mahonia flowers from last week. Well, the next photograph shows what it looked like the very next day.

I decided that, rather than fight the constant mess on the table, I would make it work for me. I stripped a number of flowers and created a kind of carpet around my now re-worked arrangement.

I replaced the mahonia flowers with diosma and chrysanthemums.

My Kamo Hon Ami camellia is flowering beautifully, hence the following arrangement, with pine in a self made container.

Bye for now, 

Emily

Amaranthus and 3 different hydrangeas

Hello all,

The work in the garden is continuing, despite niggling pains in the back and shoulder. We had booked a green waste collection through the council because we needed to do some serious pruning. And prune we did!.

Most of my ikebana this week is as a result of said pruning. I had material in abundance and, if classes were running, I would have offered much of that material to the students. So, it was left up to me to do it justice.

One really big job was to remove the flower heads of the agapanthus. I did that and, a conservative estimate was 300 stems. The difficulty was not in the cutting but in my getting to them in the very densely growing patch. Walking through the plants and keeping my balance was a challenge.They, then, had to be bunched us and tied to make it easy for the people collecting them. This ,of course, applied to all our prunnings.

I could be accused of overusing my curved agapanthus stems but I just can't throw good material away. So, please don't judge me. Looking at the photograph of my arrangement, below, I noticed that it addresses a number of themes - Using 2 Containers, Colours in a Similar Tonal Range and Curved and Straight Lines.

Agapanthus, mahonia flowers and New Zealand Flax

As delicate and ephemeral as the mahonia flowers are, the leaves are the exact opposite. They are very tough and long lasting, even without water. They are, also, extremely prickly and can only be handled with industrial strength gloves. I had planted my mahonia tree for the leaves, the flowers were an unexpected bonus. When my willow tree cracked and fell, it squashed the mahonia branches so that they are now growing horizontally. I photographed part of the remaining willow branches, which rest on the ground with the mahonia peeking from underneath.

Mahonia leaves in glass container

We, ikebanists, often go back to a completed arrangement and make changes. Usually, the photographs I post are of the final product. I thought I'd share some examples of the progression of my work. I removed the leaves from the stem with the flowers, which I used in a previous arrangement and, rather than throw them away, I made an arrangement, below.

Initially, I felt the the strength of the container necessitated the strength of the 2 mahonia leaves. However, seeing it photographed, I felt it needed adjusting. I removed one leaf and was satisfied.

Another example of the changes that I made after taking a photograph, is this next arrangement with conifer branches. There were very interesting curves on the branches, which I wanted to feature in this wall arrangement. I had pruned back quite a few of the superfluous stems and the arrangement looked good in reality. When photographed, however, having lost the depth, it looked somewhat messy. I, then removed many more of the subordinate stems to reveal the beauty of the branches. The russet coloured chrysanthemums were from the garden of my sister-in-law, Toula, who generously invited me to help myself to the them.

And here's another example. A large branch had broken off from our fig tree. I whipped up this arrangement using part of the fig branch with the leaves removed and using more of Toula's chrysanthemums. I felt it needed some greenery and I reached for some pine, which was sitting in the bucket. Looking at it the next day, I was not pleased with the pine and replaced it with the alstroemeria psittacina leaves.

By the way, you may have noticed that I often use the alstroemeria psittacina leaves for a green mass. That's because they are ideal for that application. They may look soft and delicate but, in fact, are long lasting, sometimes as long as two weeks. I highly recommend growing them and am happy to give bulbs to anyone able to come pick them up. However, I strongly suggest you do not plant them in the garden but grow them in a pot because they will take over the garden.

Here's another arrangement with the fig branch. The brown sedum, which picks up the colour of the thick branches. was left at my doorstep by my student, Shaneen.

Bye for now,
Emily

A BIRTHDAY IN THE TIME OF CORONAVIRUS

Hello all,

Yes, I'm celebrating a birthday during these unusual times. And, no, there won't be an outing to a nice restaurant surrounded by family and friends. However, I've been spoiled by my family despite the restrictions.

The grandchildren made gifts for me including ikebana arrangements, knowing how much that would please me.

Hermione made this with her assistant, Althea and
brought it ready made

Xavier made this with some assistance from yiayia

Aria made this miniature arrangement with assistance
from yiayia.

And, despite the fact that there was no cake, my daughter, Madeline, made Greek style, rice pudding last night and my beloved went and picked it up for me, so I could eat it warm, just the way I like it. And today my daughter-in-law, Jeannine, made loukoumathes, Greek honey puffs, and brought a platter full for us to share. I can't tell you how much I enjoyed both. To paraphrase Scarlett O'Hara, I won't think about the weight gain today. I'll think about it tomorrow.

And on to the garden and ikebana. I've mentioned this before but Autumn in Melbourne is glorious. Below are just two of my trees in vibrant colours.

Japanese maple

Non astringent Persimmon (Also known as Fuyu tree)

Like most gardeners, with this enforced isolation, I've been trying to catch up on my gardening. This involves, among other tasks, extensive pruning, which then provides material for ikebana. I used mahonia flowers with the persimmon stem in the arrangement, below. They look stunning when fresh but I'm lucky if they last two days before the flowerettes drop making a mess on the table.

Similarly, with autumn leaves, they seem to have a short life span and tend to drop much quicker than when they are green. My next arrangement illustrates the point very well. It took me a considerable amount of time for a large, autumn arrangement of seven different materials, making it all the more disappointing when they started to drop the very next day.

The few ginkgo petals on the table were on purpose

The next day

My Ginkgo biloba has started to change colour and I cut just a couple of pieces. One for the above arrangement, which had turned a buttery yellow and one for the one, below, which is mostly green. The ginkgo is native to China and it is found in fossils dating back 270 million years. I heard a statistic in a gardening show, recently, that there a specimens in China that are about 1,500 years old. Threatening to rival our Huon Pine in Tasmania.

And now, what to do when your husband removes from the vegetable patch a huge pumpkin vine, with lovely little pumpkins still on it and squashes it into the garden waste bin without so much as a 'could you use any of this?'. You'd think he'd know better by now! What you do is - you rummage inside said bin and try to rescue some of the interesting vine. Below is the only usable piece.

I leave you with this next piece, which came about because I removed the dying leaves and spent flowers of the crocosmia. I kept the seed heads after removing all the leaves and massed them in this interesting ceramic vase. which I won at a raffle. The flowers are Port St John creeper.

Bye for now,

Emily