9TH MARCH, 2026

 

Hello all,

The theme for the advanced students at Wednesday's class was 'Dried, bleached or Coloured Materials'. For my example, above, I looked in the storeroom for inspiration. I found a bunch of dried, fine bamboo to start with, then looked around for an appropriate container. The container dictated what colour I would spray the bamboo, that being brown and how I would place it. I secured half of them at the front and the other half at the back of the container. Having created the dried structure, I looked around the garden for fresh materials, when, to my surprise, I came across the yellow kniphofia. I say surprised because these flowers seem to appear overnight. They were absolutely perfect for my arrangement. I, then, needed some green materials - enter the variegated sansevieria, with its matching yellow edges.

Nicole had an unusual piece of dried material, which looked like coral and which she placed over the kenzan in her suiban. She pushed the stems of dried, red coloured agapanthus and dietes leaves through it to reach the kenzan.

Having finished her arrangement rather quickly, Nicole chose to make a second one. She had a piece of driftwood, which she placed over a nageire vase and added variegated ivy, which she found growing through the fence from our neighbour's garden and which I keep fighting to prevent it from taking hold in my garden. Vicky donated a yellow Oriental lily and the arrangement was complete.

Vicky used bark and a dried piece of contorted hazel (Corylus avellana Contorta), which she placed over the top of her ovoid, ceramic container. She was able to fit the Oriental lily stems through the small opening of the container.

Vicky, too, was quite prolific, making three arrangements but I've included only two of them here. Actually, I'm happy to include the girls' second arrangements because we had many absences and I would have been short of content for this post.

Vicky's material was bleached branches, which look like matsumata but are not. She secured the branches behind the container and placed the dahlias inside it at the front.

Jenny created quite a dynamic arrangement, using dried bamboo, which she wired together to create parallel lines of the thicker part of the bamboo. She added Asiatic lilies in bud and some mandarins. Interestingly, her container was, also, made of bamboo. She placed weights inside it for balance. 

Lucy was absent from class because she was fighting some kind of bug and didn't want to expose us to it. Very considerate! The conscientious ikebanist that she is, she made an arrangement at home and sent me the photograph. She used the same kind of bleached material as Vicky, placing it outside of the ceramic container and added 2 variegated NZ flax leaves and a mass of crucifix orchids.

Mary does not have a garden, so I supply her with most of the materials she needs for class. For this exercise we looked around the garden and found these partially dried strelitzia reginae leaves, with very interesting curls. Mary placed them diagonally in a ceramic, trough container and added two stems of St John Port creeper flowers. This arrangement could, also, fit into the theme of 'Lines at the Base'.

Wendy's class theme was 'Composition with Branches - a Two-step Approach'. In this exercise we create a structure with dried branches, which can stand alone. We then introduce a container and fresh plant materials to complete the arrangement. Below is Wendy's structure, which she created using pear branches....

..... and then she added the ceramic container, into which she had placed red roses and a palm leaf split in half.

Bye for now,

Emily