IKEBANA FROM THE ARCHIVES

 Hello all,

I'm sad to say that I still have not recovered from the surgery I had 18 days ago. I'm currently in a rehabilitation hospital and will be here for while yet. This means that I did not make any ikebana arrangements and, therefore, I have no, new photographs to share with you. So, I thought I'd delve into my quite considerable archives and pick a few photos of spring arrangements from the past.

The arrangement, above, is in one of my favourite containers and, of course, the flowers are arum lilies. It fits the theme 'Using Only One Kind of Material'.

The arrangement, below, is in a metal trough and the flowers are cottage gladioli and  hippeastrums. The vine is sprayed wisteria.

In the arrangement, below, the arum lilies had been manipulated by me to create the curves. I chose the hellebores for their muted colours, allowing the lilies to dominate. The container is a stainless steel trough.

In the arrangement, below, I wanted the container by Graham Wilke to dominate, so I kept the two, aeonium flowers close to the opening and added the sprayed, contorted hazel as the lines.

The ceramic container in the next arrangement is quite delicate and not very stable, necessitating the use of fine materials, Here I used spider plant, Chlorophytum comosum, and azalea.

I adore the lush greenness of the viburnum opulus in the arrangement, below and I used it in a large mass together with the skeleton of an umbrella. This is an example of 'Using Both Fresh and Unconventionnal Materials'.

Two, gorgeous strelitzia nicoli flowers and two matching containers was all that was needed to create the arrangement, below.

Another example of 'Using Both Fresh and Unconventional Material' is the arrangement, below. I placed an aluminium mesh, which I had cut into shape over  a metal conical container, then added two stems of oriental lilies.

In the wall arrangement, below, I used wisteria vine, arum lilies and alstroemeria psittacina leaves.

You can't have a spring theme blog post without including some rhododendrons. The branches in the next arrangement were from my tree, which is about 30 years old. A very good investment.

My final arrangement if of the theme 'A Variety of Materials'. It's quite self explanatory.

Bye for now,

Emily