CHRISTMAS 2025

 

Hello all,

Christmas this year was hosted by my daughter, Madeline and her husband, Warren, for about 35 people. Their house, which was recently bought, is generous in size, with spacious indoor areas as well as a large garden and pool, which made it ideal for such a gathering. While everyone contributed dishes to the lunch, the bulk of the work lay with the hosts, who coordinated and prepared the entire event. I was very proud to note that the day was a resounding success. 

Our charming hosts.

Below is the floral arrangement that Madeline asked me to make for the dining table. I used cedar branches, cockscomb (Celosia Argentea), hydrangeas, nandina domestica seed heads and poppy pods sprayed gold.

George and Dennis - experts
in the preparation of Gyro

Sisters three - Vicky, Lucy & Emily

A few more Christmas arrangements from our last class.

Below is Lei's arrangement. She used dried agapanthus, sprayed gold, one fatsia japonica leaf and bright pink calla lilies. In the placement of her materials, Lei took advantage of the two openings of the ceramic container.

Jenny kept her arrangement all white except for the red poinsettia. The branch is dried magnolia, sprayed white and the Christmas bells are actually silver, although they look white in the photo. 

Below is a photo of Vicky's second arrangement and, as such, she could afford to be playful. The white material is something synthetic, while the dark maroon Asiatic lilies are real and proudly grown by her. In the centre of the lilies she placed a little Christmas bauble.

Lucy, in her second arrangement, used a dried branch, sprayed white, a hydrangea, a small conifer branch and a number of Christmas baubles and beads.

With Christmas over, here's to a safe, healthy and very happy New Year for all.

Bye for now,

Emily

 

Hello all,

As it was our final lesson for the year last week, I had set the theme of a Christmas Arrangement for the whole class not just the seniors. The photograph, above, is of one of my arrangements. The silver material is xanthorrhoea and I chose it because it reflected the texture and colour of the container. The rest of the materials are red celosias or cockscombs, alstroemeria psittacina leaves and phalaenopsis orchid.

The arrangement, below represents the first verse of the popular Christmas carol - The twelve days of Christmas.

I was asked how I could bear to sacrifice so many fruit for the sake of an arrangement. My answer is it's either that or they get eaten by birds. Despite being small and quite unripe, many have already been eaten.

On the first day of Christmas my true love sent to me...

Below is Mary's arrangement, in which she used hosta leaves, celosias and some dry material that has been sprayed silver.

For her arrangement, Bredenia used agapanthus, umbrella grass stems and at the back a couple of orange dahlias. She added mizuhiki and a Christmas bauble to make it more festive.

Lucy used a tall, glass vase, with a piece of kiwi vine inside and out of the vase. She, then, suspended from the vine a sprig of pine and a small bauble. 

Dianne used a container with a large opening at the front and a smaller one at the top. She placed her gorgeous rose inside the cavity of the container and added a sprig of duetzia magicien to the back, which, sadly, I was not able to photograph clearly. She then tied the mizuhiki through the two openings, thus partially framing the container.

Deb, who is only in Book 2, enjoyed doing her first freestyle arrangement. She used some pincushion flowers (leucospermum) and mizuhiki in this unusually shaped container.

Vicky was in a particularly festive mood and really went to town. Using two, tall, glass vases she added a dried branch sprayed white. She also added Asiatic lilies in an almost black colour that she grew herself and some murraya paniculata for greenery. She, then, hung baubles and added a string of lights over the whole piece.

Cymbie took a completely different approach to the theme. She used small pumpkins that looked like oranges and added cinnamon bark strung together. She delicately balanced her glass vase over a bowl. Interestingly, the bright orange bands that appear on the glass vase don't exist but are only reflections.

We had a very pleasant afternoon tea once we finished class. We had plans for Christmas break-up lunch at a restaurant but mum's passing had put paid to that. Nevertheless, we enjoyed the company, the repast and the exchanging of Kris Kringle gifts.

Three of my students were recently promoted and I was able to present Lei Wang and Jenny Loo with their certificates on the day. Unfortunately, Wendy Sun was absent and will receive hers later.

Whatever you're celebrating, may it be a safe and enjoyable festive season.

Bye for now,

Emily

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

8TH DECEMBER 2025

Hello all,

First of all, I'd like to thank all of you kind people, who took the time to email me with condolence messages. I apologise that I haven't been able to reply to all of you personally. Apart from dealing with the grief and organising mum's funeral, with all that that entails, my sisters and I, having spent 24 hours at our mother's bedside in hospital, picked up whatever bug she had and became very sick indeed. Then followed a week of antibiotics and every conceivable cold medicine we could get our hands on. It must have been a particularly virulent strain. We're only just getting back to normal.

So, onto ikebana.

At our last class I had set for the advanced students the theme 'Using Both Fresh and Unconventional Materials'. In this exercise it is important to have the unconventional material be an integral part of the arrangement, not placed on it as an afterthought or a decoration.

Mine is the arrangement at the top of this post. I found some rather unusual packing material which was flat and quite firm. However, I tried dampening it by spaying it with water and it became pliable, allowing me to shape it and, then, when it dried, it kept its shape. It was a dull, brown colour, so I sprayed it blue at the top and white underneath. I liked the contrast of the blue against the yellow of the vases. The fresh materials were chrysanthemums, oriental lily and xanthorrhoea.

I had more of the packing material and wanted to make another arrangement. This one reminds me of the collars worn by the aristocracy in Elizabethan times.

Lei used carboard ribbons in two colours, which she joined together and swirled around two matching vases. Her fresh material was geranium.

The net in Nicole's arrangement is one used by florists and it has enough body to sit up, allowing her to place a rose underneath it. She added another rose together with some leaves on the outside of the net. 

Vicky's unconventional material was the stand, which she used to hold the vase as well as a shape which she repeated with the equisetum. She also fed the equisetum into the tubes of the stand. The single cosmos was the focal point.

Often prolific, Vicky made a second arrangement, this time using thick rope, equisetum and a geranium flower. Somewhere under all that is a ceramic container.

Lucy used the same type of cardboard ribbon as Lei in a swirling pattern in and out of the arrangement. The colour of her zygopetalum orchids worked very well with the colour of the container and the ribbon.

Cymbie started with a circular, metal container and added the stem of a heliconia. She created a ball shape with this polystyrene material which she placed at the top of the stem. She, then, repeated the shape of the container further down. She finished the arrangement with the addition of a geranium flower.

I had mentioned in a previous post the workshop we had with Master Instructor Ms Reito Oizumi, using washi paper. Cymbie was unable to attend so, in class, I gave her what I had left of the washi paper and encouraged her to make an arrangement. Below is her piece, using the flower she cut away from the stem for her previous arrangement.

And whilst I'm on the subject of Ms Oizumi's workshop, I'd like to show you how the arrangement I made then has changed after three weeks. If you look closely, you will see that the Siberian dogwood has sprouted leaves. You gotta love nature! She is indomitable and always finds a way to return and thrive, no matter what.

Original

After three weeks

Wendy's class theme was 'Composition Expressing a Movement'. She chose 'cascading' as her movement, using weeping willow and strelitzias reginae in a tall, ceramic vase.

Bye for now,

Emily

GOODBYE MUM!

 

Mum and me

Hello all,

It is with a very heavy heart that I make the following announcement.

On Tuesday, 25th November, our family said goodbye to our mother, Soultana Papadopoulos, aged ninety-five. In recent years she had been living in an aged care facility, where dementia slowly took more and more from her — her memory, her hearing, her eyesight, and eventually much of the joy she once found in life. She had reached a point where she no longer wished to continue, and we, her family, hoped only for her passing to be peaceful. In that sense, her death was timely and gentle, something she was ready for.

And yet, the sense of loss is immense. Even knowing it was her time does not soften the ache of her absence. Grief arrives in waves I cannot predict, and there are moments when I am simply inconsolable. I write these words to honour her life, to honour the complexity of loving and losing, and to find my way through the quiet emptiness she leaves behind.

I can understand why some people might be skeptical when a daughter speaks glowingly of her mother. But as the eldest, I was the one who received most of the phone calls over the past week from her contemporaries, friends, and relatives — from Greece, where she was born and lived until she was thirty-four, and from those who knew her here in Australia. Every single person, without exception, spoke of the same qualities. They remembered her loving nature, her generosity, the broadness of her smile, and the unmistakable warmth of her heart. They told stories of her kindness, her humour, and the fun she brought into their lives.

Mum had many talents — she was a gifted dressmaker, an enthusiastic knitter, a wonderful cook, and a devoted gardener. Her garden never followed a theme or a carefully planned style; she simply planted anything she could fit into the soil. The result was a glorious profusion of colour and vibrancy, a joyful chaos that reflected her own spirited nature. Try as we might, we could never convince her to use less water, so in the end we installed a large rainwater tank just to keep her from doing the wrong thing. Her garden became the showpiece of the street, a living testament to her energy, her persistence, and her love of beauty in all its forms.  Mum had a natural flair for putting flowers together that looked beautiful and there was always a vase with brightly coloured flowers on the kitchen table.

She lived in a cul-de-sac in Northcote where all her neighbours loved her. And why wouldn't they? She shared her baking with them, always had treats for the children and she grew enough vegetables to share with all of them.

Mum lived with us, after a serious stroke, for nearly ten years and, during that time she saw, literally, hundreds of ikebana arrangements in the house. But she never commented on any of them, which I found surprising. However, she absolutely loved the miniature arrangements. So, today, I made one in her honour.

With all the grief and the busyness of organising the funeral, and with calls and messages coming from well-meaning friends and relatives, I found that spending an hour, quietly working on the miniature arrangements was quite calming. So I made a second one—just for myself.

Bye for now,

Emily

 

Hello all,

Over the years I have received a number of requests or suggestions to write a book. I didn't give this much consideration because I don't think any publisher would consider an Ikebana book by a relative unknown, financially viable. 

However, my most recent such request from a lovely lady in South Australia included a suggestion of a series of instructional videos, to which people could log in and watch. This is doable. I would like to ask for your feedback on the idea and an indication of whether you would be interested in watching such videos. Of course, there would be a fee but I haven't figured out what that would be or how it would be implemented.

Before I put in all the work required, I would like to have some idea of the number of people that might be interested. Please be assured that I am not asking for a commitment, merely a show of interest. Feel free to email me on emilykara@optusnet.com.au with any questions, suggestions and, hopefully, a show of interest.

OK. So back to ikebana. In my previous Wednesday class I had set a double theme for the advanced students - 'Shape of the Container' and 'Colour of the Container'. 

Mine is the example at the top of this post. The colour of the metal container is slightly changed with  the reflection of the surface but it blends with the smoke bush (cotinus Grace). The colours of the Louisiana Iris and the variegated cordyline also tone in with the brown colour of the smoke bush. The shape of the smoke bush flower repeats the shape of the vase.

Nicole used a deep purple coloured, glass vase for her arrangement, below. She used dried weeping willow sprayed white to complement the curve of her vase and vibrant pink crucifix orchids to tone in with the colour of the vase.

Jenny used silver birch branches inside and outside of her vase, which has a pattern of thin branches at the front. Her white roses reflected the colour of her vase.

Vicky chose to complement the shape of her container but to contrast the colour. She used kiwi vine to create a loop extending away from the container and placed a green goddess lily in the space created. Another green goddess and a sprig of alstroemeria close to the mouth of the container, completed the arrangement.

Wendy had a lot of fun creating miniature arrangements, which she placed on an irregularly shaped board made of Huon pine.

Often, during class, a student will finish her arrangement early and will be sitting idle. I usually encourage her to make another arrangement for which materials from my garden can be accessed. Below are three such examples.

Below is Vicky's second arrangement on the theme. She used a monstera deliciosa leaf which she curled onto itself to repeat the shape of the ceramic container by Graham Wilke. A gymea leaf out of the bucket and some left over alstroemeria flowers and the arrangement was complete.

This particular day, Vicky was quite prolific, making a third arrangement. This time it was just a freestyle, using left over kiwi vine and a strelitzia reginae in a tall vase.

Nicole also made a freestyle arrangement with whatever materials she had left and some roses from my garden.

Below is an arrangement that Lucy put together using only materials she found in my 'bucket' - a gymea leaf and three variegated cordyline leaves.

Bye for now,

Emily