GOODBYE NORTHCOTE

 

This is not the way it looked when mum and dad lived there

Hello all,

My parents bought the family home in Northcote over 50 years ago. I, being the eldest, only lived there for a short time until I married and left home. My sisters, however, did most of their growing up in that home until, they too, married and left. 

It is an unremarkable, semi-detached home, built for returned servicemen but which was full of warmth and boundless love. Mum used to prepare dinners for all of us once a week and my children often spent holidays and weekends there. We never referred to it as mum and dad's home but, rather, 'Northcote'.

Mum kept an immaculate home. To her it was not a case of 'Cleanliness is next to Godliness' but 'Cleanliness IS Godliness'. Her garden was a profusion of colour and vibrancy. She had no qualms about spending copious amounts of water on her garden. So much so, that we had to buy her a large rain water tank to stop her from overusing mains water. There was no particular design to her garden except to make sure that every square inch of ground was planted with brightly coloured flowers. All her plants were so healthy, they looked like they were on steroids. In the shady spot in the patio she had hydrangeas as big as soccer balls.

We lost dad in 2000 and mum was on her own until 2007, when she had a major stroke and could, no longer, live alone. She moved in with us and the house was rented. 

We recently had to make the very difficult decision of having mum go into care. This necessitated the selling of her home.16 years of neglect by tenants left the house and garden in an appalling state. We went there all together on Saturday to clear up what was left of the tenant's mess before settlement. Having done that we sat in the back yard, under the peppercorn tree, on some makeshift benches and enjoyed a little picnic of tea and coffee and our favourite, freshly baked muffins. It was a lovely, sunny day and, despite the fact that we had not been there as a family for 16 years, we felt very comfortable. We reminisced, we joked and enjoyed being there one last time. And yes, there was the odd tear as well. A fitting farewell to our beloved family home.

Now on to ikebana,

The flag iris are the fist irises to flower in my garden and their arrival is a true herald of spring. I love arranging them in the traditional way. Below is an arrangement using the blue and the white iris in a large, rectangular suiban. I used two long kenzans, arranged lengthwise, on which I placed the weeping willow at the back cascading over the irises plus their leaves and two, small sprigs of Japanese maple.

Below is a vertical arrangement made with flowering, crabapple branches. They were so full of flowers that I had to remove some of them to reveal the stems and create space.

You may remember the arrangement, below, which I made on 18th September with hydrangea stems that were just bringing out leaves. I had chosen them for their interesting curves and the colour of the stems. Seven weeks later, still in the same container, they produced flowers.

The wall arrangement, below, is made with fresh, spring materials - roses, smoke bush (kotinus) and Portugal laurel flowers.

The lower part of a large, palm leaf was left over from an exhibition piece and was too interesting to throw away. I used it in a large, glass vase and added a crucifix orchid, sweeping forward. 

And speaking of leftovers, the green bamboo, below, were remnants from a different exhibit. I had treated them by placing them in boiling, salted water for about 10 minutes and then into the arrangement. This preserved the leaves for more that a week. The flower is curculigo capitulata.

Mary's class theme was 'The Fifty Principles of Sogetsu' from which she chose number 45 - 'If the flowers are the main feature, the container should be subordinate to the flowers. Likewise, if the container is the main focus, then the flowers should be secondary to it'. Mary chose the latter.

Bye for now,

Emily