9th November, 2020

 

Althea, the delightful little fairy at the bottom of my garden with
her ikebana arrangement.

,

Hello all,

With the loosening of restrictions I was able to enjoy the company of precious grandchildren again. Althea is very keen to learn Ikebana and is giving her older sister, Hermione, a run for her money. Can you imagine how happy that makes me?

I enjoyed, so much, spending time with Althea in the back yard, gathering daisies, then making them into a garland for her.

We've had a couple of warm days, causing the Siberian iris to flower all at once. I love their deep purple colour and thin, long stems but they are quite ephemeral, so I had to hurry up and arrange them before they die. Like most other iris, they do have a second flower bud on each stem, which flowers when the first one dies, thus extending their life somewhat. I like to display them against white materials as it is a good foil for the deep purple.

Palm inflorescence, Siberian iris and alstroemeria psittacina leaves
in a self made container

I, also, like to make a 'pond' arrangement this time of year using some iris or other. This time I used the Siberian iris. The suiban is one I made specifically for 'pond' arrangements. I used crushed blue and green glass on the bottom, which melted when fired, to create the look of water.

Willow, Siberian Iris, Japanese maple and
coriander flowers

I was repotting my Fatsia japonica plant and broke one of the leaves. It had such a lovely curve, much like a cantilever umbrella, that I thought of using it as such. 

Rose -Queen Elizabeth and Fatsia Japonica
in self made container

Ah, yep. Still more red hippeastrums with a palm spathe, the inside of which I sprayed gold.

My spuria iris produced very few flowers this year because I had divided them in winter, as they were very crowded. I used a couple in the arrangement, below, with half a Monstera deliciosa leaf.

The first flush of the roses, which is the best for the year was also affected by the warm weather and I had to dead head most of them. There were still a few useable ones.

Mr Lincoln roses, iceberg roses, alstroemeria
psittacina leaves and wisteria vine

The Louisiana iris were quite plentiful this year and, having already arranged them in the traditional way, I thought I'd try using them as a mass of flowers in this wall arrangement. Vicky brought me a very big piece of nandina domestica with flower buds. I had to cut it back severely to use it. 

Bye for now,

Emily