15TH DECEMBER, 2025

 

Hello all,

At our final Sogetsu meeting for the year we did things a little differently. Rather than one demonstrator, we had four senior teachers demonstrating at the same time. The theme was 'A Celebratory Arrangement'. I was one of the four and the photograph at the top of this post is of my arrangement. I had decided on a tall vase because I, particularly, wanted to use the Cashmere Cypress with its cascading habit. I, also, wanted to use the phalaenopsis orchids, which had been a part of the casket spray at mum's funeral. I had red, altissimo roses at the back and two of my crocheted bells. Normally, in ikebana, we prefer restraint but when it comes to Christmas or New Year arrangements, we can go a bit over the top. Hence the mizuhiki.

The other demonstrators were Christopher James, Lara Telford and Reiko Ito.

Below is Vicky's arrangement. She used hydrangeas, gypsophila and dianella leaves, at the tips of which she attached Christmas baubles.

Lucy's arrangement, below, comprised of dried branches sprayed silver, hydrangeas and some variegated leaves, with which I'm unfamiliar. And, as a nod to Christmas - a silver bauble. As for her container, it's absolutely darling!

And now back home. I'm loving using my evergreen dogwood (Cornus Norman Haddon). It has grown sufficiently that I can cut fairly large branches without feeling guilty. Also, I'm very pleasantly surprised at how long they can last. The branch I used at our annual exhibition lasted three weeks.

Below, I used the dogwood with peonies - Coral Charm.

I had a great run with iris this year. They, very conveniently, flowered at different times so that at any given time in about a two month period I had some variety flowering. The flag/bearded iris came first, then the Louisiana. After that, the Siberian iris and last the Japanese water iris or Iris Ensata. Below is a simple arrangement using iris ensata.

I have a Philadelphus plant which is growing amongst other trees and, as a consequence, it produces very long stems trying to reach the sun. In the arrangement, below, I used two of those very long stems. In fact, I had to cut off almost a metre before arranging them. I needed big flowers to balance with the size of the branches and, luckily, I had some fully opened, oriental lilies, which fit the bill. The common name for philadelphus is 'mock orange' and it has a delightful fragrance. Those large branches in our entry filled the whole house with their scent.

The philadelphus lasted only a few days and had to be removed. However, having the vase on the floor next to the one on the wall, I looked around for other, tall materials to replace it. I settled on the NZ flax flowers and two of its leaves. The snapdragon flowers were from the church flowers at mum's funeral and looked very sad and droopy with bent stems. My first instinct was to throw them away but, then, I gave myself a good talking to, reminding myself that I am an experienced ikebanist and I should be able to find a way to use them. So I did. I placed them hanging downwards on top of each other, thus building up the volume. Initially, I was happy with the result. Photo - below left.

However, as I walked past it, something was bothering me and, in order to figure out what, I put on my teacher's hat and looked at it objectively. The effect was that of two, separate arrangements placed next to each other. They needed to 'marry', as my teacher, Carlyne, used to say. So, I placed another two leaves in the bottom container, thus unifying the arrangement -  photo below right.

Original

Corrected

I was given a beautiful bunch of long stemmed, yellow roses by my student, Mary. I took advantage of the long stems by placing them in this quite large container. I created the structure using gymea leaves and variegated NZ flax.

I had a couple of roses left over, perfect for use with the leaves of my newly acquired hosta - Blue Shades. This arrangement fits the theme 'Paying Attention to the Shape of the Container'.

My little, powder room arrangement, below was made with NZ flax leaves that I had stripped and used the side without the spine. This allowed the smooth curve. Then I added the phalaenopsis stem in the space created.

Bye for now,

Emily