Hello all,

I have an olive tree of which I'm not particularly fond for two reasons. Firstly, it doesn't produce many olives (my husband, who comes from Kalamata, had visions of jars filled with marinated olives) and, secondly, I don't find it useful in ikebana because the leaves grow in all directions and they have a very distinct underside. 

However, when I had a close look at some of the branches I was trimming away, I noticed the branch in the arrangement, above, which had potential for ikebana. After careful trimming, I was left with a branch with beautiful movement.

Then the challenge was to find floral material to put with it. At this time of year there are not many flowers in my garden but I do have some rather straggly chrysanthemums. I placed them in a small mass with their stems following the curve of the olive branch. The glass vase is a much prized gift from my daughter and son-in-law.

A few weeks back, to my great delight, my pot of heamanthus coccineus produced five flowers. It's always a challenge using these flowers in ikebana because they have a short stem. I chose two matching, curved containers into one of which I placed the flowers in graduating heights. In the other container I placed sansevierias in graduating heights and finished off with the addition of a wisteria vine, sprayed white. 

At last month's Masterclass we worked with table mats in arrangements as an unconventional material. I, later, played around with one of the mats by wetting it and reshaping it. As it happened, the red, glass bowl was sitting on one of the tables in my studio and I pushed the wet mat into the bowl and left it to dry. It replicated the shape of the bowl. So then the challenge was to find a way to use it. Feeling a little playful, I made the arrangement, below, using spent agapanthus flowers.

In our May Ikebana International meeting Jo Reitze, a painter of some repute, conducted a power point presentation of her work. She specializes in painting gardens, in particular commissioned work. We, the members, were asked to bring arrangements inspired by our gardens. 

I'm almost always inspired by my garden, so it was easy for me. I love the strong, sculptural look of agave and I have three, large clumps growing. The flower I used is called a 'Cleome spider flower'. I had planted some seedlings a few years ago and, it appears, a seed survived in one of my pots and grew into a tall plant. The juxtaposition of the soft, delicate flower against the strong agave appeals to me.

The arrangement, below was made by Wendy. The green material is small sections of giant philodendrons. The container is a coloured glass bowl and the flowers are disbud chrysanthemums.

Photograph curtesy of Lei Wang

When I find interesting materials I have to use them, even if I have nowhere to display them. Below is a case in point. The bean like material in the arrangement are seed pods from the 'Port St John creeper', which grows over the fence from my neighbour's garden. Together with hydrangeas, I made a simple arrangement based on the 'Variation No. 4 Hanging' style.

At the II meeting one of our members had sent along small cuttings of golden pine from his bonsais. As they were very short stemmed, I placed them in my curved container and placed another container behind it, in which I placed two proteas.

This week's camellia ikebana is in a self made container which I call Aladdin's Lamp but which I use quite infrequently.

Bye for now,

Emily