A MERRY CHRISTMAS

 

Hello all,

I hope all of you who celebrate Christmas had as great a day as we did. We've become quite adept at organising large family gatherings and we're lucky enough to have a house that lends itself well to such events. There were 33 of us in the end, with my daughter's family in Holland and another family of six absent due to covid.

Every family brought a contribution to add to the feast but it was still a huge amount of work for the household. Cleaning up afterwards has its own challenges. In fact, I'm so tired, I debated whether I should write a post this week but, after an afternoon nap, I recovered sufficiently.

You can't have a party without decorating the house with ikebana arrangements. And I made a few.

I made a really big one in a large urn under the curved staircase. Securing the heavy branch of pine to face upwards was a challenge but once that was done, the flowers were relatively easy to place. At the back there are white agapanthus, in the middle alstroemeria psittacina, to the right are nandina domestica inflorescence and showing off at the front are three giant dahlias (for which I paid a small fortune and which died the next day). And lets not forget the giant, gold baubles.

With the offcuts from the pine I made a simple Christmas arrangement for a corner on the buffet table.

This next arrangement is almost as tall as the door and its position is by the front, glass entry. I moved it here to photograph, as it was lost against the glass. I had used this metal structure before at an exhibition at Sofitel some years ago. I added blue and white agapanthus and alstroemeria psittacina leaves.

On the dining table I placed a low arrangement with clematis only. This was done on Christmas eve. By lunch the next day, some of the flowers had wilted and I had to make a mad dash to the garden for replacements. However, cutting clematis is fraught with difficulties. It grows over my kefir lime and olive trees, attaching itself strongly with its leaf stalks and is very hard to find which is the vine you want to cut.

 And a little one for the coffee table, with a Jacobean lily and aspidistra leaf in a glass container.

There were people all over the house and garden making it impossible to take a group photo but I'll share with you this one of some of us girls.

Last Wednesday my class and I went for our breakup lunch at a lovely place called Warran Glen, where we dined al fresco and enjoyed the views of manicured gardens. It was a lovely way to end the year.

From left - Wendy Sun, Vicky Kalokathis, Lucy Papas, Shaneen Garbutt, Jenny Loo, Nicole McDonald, Emily
And squatting in front - Lei Wang and Bredenia Raquel.

With Christmas over, we cast our thoughts to the new year with hopes of a great improvement on the recent few.

Bye for now,

Emily

MASTERCLASS #13

Hello all,

The previous Saturday was the last Masterclass for the year. It was a small group of only three students but the class was quite enjoyable. I provided the same materials to each student but allowed them to choose their container. The materials were - a very long flower spike of the New Zealand flax, just under three metres in length, three New Zealand flax leaves, one gymea leaf and a number of dietes leaves. The brief was to create a 'dramatic arrangement'.

The arrangement, above, was done by Chris. She used almost the whole flower stem, bending it downwards and created different angles with the leaves. The arrangement was to be placed on a pedestal or at  the edge of the table with one flax leaf reaching down, beyond the edge. She chose her container for its strength and stability as well as its colour.

Akemi selected a donut shaped container with three openings, of which she used two. She shortened the flower stem to a manageable size but the arrangement was still very tall. Of her materials she used only two New Zealand flax leaves and the gymea leaf. 

Vicky, also kept her materials to a minimum. She used two New Zealand Flax leaves, four dietes leaves and a segment of the flower stem in a ceramic container with only one, small opening.

As for me, I've been enjoying my dogwood, Cornus Norman Hadden. It is an evergreen variety, with the flowers, with their long stalks, looking as though they are floating above the branches. 

But what I like most about this variety is the way the flowers start off cream in colour and, as they age, turn pink, so that, at any one time, there is a mixture of cream and pink flowers. Unfortunately the colour variation is not very noticeable in the photograph.

At our last class Shaneen's lesson was Arrangements for Celebrations. She chose to make a Christmas arrangement but avoided the usual and, perhaps, cliched Christmas colours and chose instead more subtle colours. She used the fluffy smoke bush, Cotinus 'grace', yellow roses, red dogwood stems, Cornus Siberica alba and baubles.

Dianne's class theme was 'Two or More Containers'. She used two, different sized, ceramic containers in which she placed Weigela Florida stems and exquisite, yellow peonies.

Lei's class theme was 'To Be Viewed From Below'. She made an arrangement in a basket designed to hang on the wall. She used hoya vine, dark purple clematis and billy buttons.

As this is my last post before Christmas, I'd like to wish all of you a happy and safe holiday season and, to those celebrating Christmas, may it be as merry as your hearts desire! As for me, I'm getting ready to receive 38 guests on the day, so, if you don't receive a post next Monday, you'll know the reason why.

Bye for now,

Emily

12th December, 2022

 

Hello all,

Our last class was the final for the year when, usually, we make a Christmas arrangement. This year I set the same theme with a slight variation. A Christmas table arrangement.

The photograph, above is of my arrangement, which I made a few days before class. Unfortunately, the hippeastrums did not last until class, so, I replaced them with the only flowers available in my garden - Queen Elizabeth roses. It makes an interesting colour combination - the pink flowers in a red suiban.

The rest of the materials are pine (pinus radiata), ornithogalum flowers , and palm inflorescence sprayed silver.The strands of silver are mizuhiki.

Jenny used asparagus fern, geranium, lacecap hydrangea, red mizuhiki and Christmas baubles in a twisted, cylindrical container. 

Bredenia used sprayed corky elm branches, altissimo roses and gold and silver mizuhiki.

Nicole used sprayed pear branches, cyprus, roses and Christmas baubles in a ceramic suiban.

Vicky went all modern with umbrella grass, anthuriums, and baubles - shiny and mat black ones and just one white. The container is a glass trough.

Lucy, who is very busy with the building of hers and her partner's new home, came to class without any materials. I told her to go into the garden and help herself but, before she could do that, the other students contributed enough materials for her to create the arrangement, below. The pine was from my 'bucket', the hydrangea quercifolia from Shaneen, the altissimo roses from Vicky and Lucy, herself, provided the sprayed, dried strelitzia leaves.

Mary's class theme was 'Dried, Bleached or Coloured Materials'. She used dried garlic flowers and dried aspidistra leaves in an Ikenobo style container. The fresh material is philadelphus flowers and pinellia tripartita leves.

Before I sign off, I need to make a correction. In my previous post Vicky and I used a material, which was wrongly identified by my Leaf Snap App. It called it Carex acutiformis. However, a much better informed reader of mine, Debra Collett, wrote and told me that it is in fact from the small grass tree,  Xanthorrhoea minor https://inaturalist.ala.org.au/taxa/560378-Xanthorrhoea-minor. Thank you Deb!

Bye for now,

Emily

STRELITZIAS

 

Hello all,

The strelitzias reginae are looking quite lovely in the garden but even lovelier in my ikebana. In the above arrangement I used two gymea leaves to create the zig-zag design, then added the flowers.

We recently brought an arborist to do some pruning around the garden including removing two of the strelitzia nicolai plants. Once on the ground, I was able to remove the flowers with a longer stem than usual because to do so would damage a number of the leaves. In this case, it didn't matter. 

As always with these flowers, a very heavy container is needed to support the weight of them. The vase, below is very heavy indeed. I certainly can't lift it, so I use it infrequently. It worked well in this arrangement under the stairs.

More strelitzias reginae. I can't resist the unusual shapes these flowers sometimes have. They often exhibit real character in their bird-like appearance.

The material I used in  the arrangement, below is philadelphus coronarius. This plant belonged to my auntie Angela, who passed away many years ago. Her son offered to let me dig it up from her garden before selling the house. It's a poignant reminder of a much loved auntie.

I have another philadelphus in my garden. Below are close-ups of the two. They, also, have a delicate fragrance. Their common name is Mock Orange.

Philadelphus verginalis

Philadelphus coronarias

Sam dropped in to see his brother George, whose wife, Betty, is very successful in growing hippeastrums. George snapped two gorgeous stems and handed them to Sam to give to me. I didn't need to do much to arrange them, except to pick accompanying materials and to place them in my wall container. I did do some judicial pruning of the ferns, although, in the photo, it looks like it needed more.

The previous Sunday Lucy, Vicky and I, together with our respective men, went for lunch at a lovely restaurant down in the Peninsula. On the return trip Vicky collected these interesting, tall stems of flowers. I looked them up and found they are called Carex acutiformis, a type of sedge. She made an arrangement with them and dropped off five of them to me.

Vicky's modern arrangement

My naturalistic arrangement.
Variegated Iris Japonica and hosta leaves

Mary's curriculum lesson was 'Focusing on Water'. She used scrunched up cellophane floating high  in a glass container and added one variegated New Zealand flax leaf and three cumquats.

Bye for now,

Emily

CALLISTEMONS

Hello all,

For last week's class I asked the advanced students to make an arrangement in a basket using callistemons. I had noticed, before we left for our trip, that these brightly coloured, Australian native shrubs were in full bloom and thought they might still be usable for ikebana. Unfortunately, most of the many trees in our area were well past their best but we were able find enough to work with.

For my arrangement, above, I used red bottle brush (callistemon citrinus) and a cream coloured one (Callistemon 'Willow Bottlebrush') in an antique Japanese, bamboo basket.

Jenny used the same materials as I did but her red bottle brush were sitting upright compared to my hanging ones.

Vicky used a basket with lid and, along with her red callistemons, she used a mass of white roses and Limonium meyeri.

Bredenia, also, used red and cream bottle brush stems in a wide basket.

Lucy used a basket she made herself many years ago out of palm inflorescence, during a workshop that I ran for my class. It was good to see it being used again. Together with the red bottle brush, she used strelitzias reginae and dietes flowers.

Shaneen's curriculum theme was a "Table Arrangement'. She used two different coloured roses and spuria iris in an oval, ceramic suiban, keeping the arrangement low, so as not to obstruct guests' view of each other.

Lei's curriculum theme was 'Dried, Bleached or Coloured Materials'. She created a structure from a painted, corky elm branch over a ceramic container and added aspidistra leaves split in half and chrysanthemums.

Dianne did the lesson called 'Free style Ka-bu-wa-ke'. The pink flowering branch is Weigela florida. She, also, used Dutch Iris and gorgeous, purple alliums.

Mary's lesson was ' Using Both Fresh and Unconventional Materials'. She used a rubber sheet with holes punched through it and spuria iris in a white, ceramic trough.

Bye for now, 

Emily

21st November, 2022

 

Hello all,

Below is the link to the second virtual exhibition, Celebration, of Ikebana International Melbourne chapter. Please click on it to view the exhibition.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bt1eJQsC0wg

My student, Dianne, brought to class a whole bucket of fabulous material, amongst them these stunning peonies, which she gave to me. She lives in Trentham, which is considerably colder than Melbourne and might explain why she has better success with peonies than the rest of us. Or, perhaps she's just a better gardener. Whatever the reason I was very grateful to have the chance to work with these temperamental but gorgeous flowers. I had to include a close up.

With all the rain we had recently some plants have suffered from overwatering but others have thrived. Such a one is my Nandina domestica, which has grown so much that it was encroaching on the foot path and had to be pruned. I cut a large branch and removed three quarters of the leaves before placing it in this tall vase. I love the slanting form and was able to secure it using a horizontal fixture. I, then, looked around for flowers and tried several different ones but none satisfied me, until I noticed this strelitzia with its head looking up. I worked on the stem to create the same curve as the nandina stem.

Vicky recently gave me this quirky container, which I love using.

With rhododendron

With Siberian iris

Last week, as I was preparing for class, my brother-in-law, Peter, walked in and handed me two large stems of kiwi vine in flower. He said they were gift from my sister (Vicky). So I put the branch I was working on into a bucket and proceeded to arrange the kiwi vine. The last of my hippeastrums came in very handy as did the inflorescence of the nandina domestica.

Close up of the flowers which have a 
delicate fragrance

As I was clearing up my studio upon our return from our trip, I was going to throw away these golden ash branches, which I had used previously. But I couldn't. So I played with them and this is what emerged. It was, also, a good way to use my last cymbidium orchid.

Bye for now,

Emily