ROADSIDE IKEBANA

On Boxing Day, a cool still morning, we had an early morning walk in the Royal Melbourne Botanic Garden. I was delighted to see the mass of Sacred Lotus nelumbo nucifera, flowering along the board-walk by the garden's lakeside cafe. It is wonderful to be able to stand so close to these beautiful flowers and leaves.

One of my favourite ikebana photographs is of a Rikka arrangement by Norman Sparnon made entirely of lotus leaves, buds, flowers and seed pods *.

I was intrigued by these unfurling leaves that looked like exotic boats on the water surface.

Outside the cafe tables and chairs were covered in fallen Jacaranda flowers.

About two months ago I noticed that one of the succulents, Agave salmiana, had started to send up a flower stalk.

When it was still just in bud form, on 11 November, it looked quite sculptural...

...and reminded me of one of the chimneys on the roof of the Palau Guell in Barcelona.

Later flower masses formed at the end of the branches...

...that were obviously attractive to the Rainbow lorikeets.

Back in our own garden, last Thursday I had to take some preventative action to protect the hydrangeas from wilting.

We had a short burst of a few hours of 40 degrees celsius then a return to the low 20's. Fortunately my watering and shading preparations paid off. The photo above was taken on the following day.

One of my emergency measures was to pick a few blooms in advance of the heat in case all of the flowers were badly damaged. I made this arrangement of three hydrangeas, from two different shrubs and teamed with some stems from the strelitzia. I bought the box-shaped vase by the Canadian potter Leta Cormier last year at Almonte, near Ottawa. She described it as an 'envelope form' and is from her 'landscape series'.

I had made an earlier arrangement in the same vase using a large sheet of eucalyptus bark and a King protea.

Greetings from Christopher
5th January 2019

* Japanese Flower Arrangement, Classical and Modern, by Norman Sparnon. p 61

About four years ago I was given a pomegranate that has grown well and is now producing beautiful bright red flowers. Well, the birds in the garden love them. I suspect the birds think they are already fruit. The consequence is that the ground around the bush is littered with flowers that haven't had a chance to develop into fruit. Mature pomegranate fruit is just what this ikebanist has been hoping to achieve.

My frustration has led to the following desperate measure, netting. To ensure that the branches do not grow through the net I made a structure about two and half metres tall. There is a reasonable amount of room around the bush to allow for a couple of seasons growth, I hope. In the process I decided to pick two flower stems from a pale blue-grey succulent that were growing through from my neighbour's garden.

I thought the orange of the flower was a good match for this vase by Gail Nichols. This is a soda ash-fired vessel that is soft green except for a couple of strong orange flashes. I have added some primary eucalyptus leaves from the garden of the neighbours on the other side of our house. Their soft blue-grey glaucous leaves harmonise well with the similar powdery stem of the succulent.

On the subject of orange flowers, I picked the last few strelitzias a couple of weeks ago before they could be damaged by rain. It is only now that I realise that I chose a pale green glazed vase for them also.

This very unusual vase is by Graeme Wilkie, and not an easy one to use. However, I thought it would suit the rather dramatic lines of the two flowers stems. I was particularly interested in the space formed between them. For balance, a single leaf with a dull maroon central rib has been placed between the stems to provide some mass closer to the vase opening. I took special care to have all the stems issuing from the vase in a single line that does not touch the sides of the vase.

Greetings from Christopher
12th January 2019

Don't be too shocked by the photo below. No, we are not overseas. These photos were sent by my internet correspondent Amos, from the eastern USA, with the comment that '...while you have flowers...This is mother nature's way of decorating around here.'

The photos were taken in Amos' garden and he is so right about the beauty created by mother nature.

It is interesting to see how the lines of these small trees are revealed by being bare of leaves, and further emphasised by the contrast of the white snow.

Our TV news had covered stories of recent extreme cold weather in Europe and North America. At the same time, there has been un-seasonally hot weather over much of Australia. On the south coast we have been very fortunate with our temperature being moderated by cooler southerly winds and the hot days occurring in isolation.

On some days the Front Beach at Torquay has looked like this, with many families making the most of the long holidays.

Over the past 6 weeks or so I have been watching agapanthusflowering in many nearby gardens. Such a summery look when the sky is often cloudless. Yesterday, I decided I should make an ikebana arrangement using them before it is too late. Like the trees in Amos' winter garden, one of the main characteristics of agapanthus is the strong lines of their stems. Then the clear blue of their flowers.

I decided to use this vase by Pippin Drysdale from her ‘Tanami Traces’ series, which has blue and red lines. The glazing technique she developed was inspired by the repetitive lines she saw in the Tanami Desert landscape.

The shape of this vase is a challenge because of its very narrow base and the strong colouring of the glaze. After some time experimenting I found that a single flower looked better than two or more because of the visual strength of the vase. The two ‘shredded’ aspidistra leaves created a textural contrast in the form of softer flowing lines. I have used 'cross bars' to support the materials away from the sides of the vase.

Greetings from Christopher

20th January 2019

A couple of days ago we had something of an invasion of sulphur-crested cockatoos. With the recent warmer weather, the bird bath has become quite an attraction in the garden.

As you can see this photo is a detail from the one above. Shortly after taking the photo all but one cockatoo flew away. The one that remained then started to chew on the small Strelitzia nicolaito the left front of the bird bath. I chased it away and now have re-located the birdbath at a distance from plants that are particularly precious.

Speaking of precious plants, I had to take protective measures in advance for the hydrangeas, because of the 40 degrees celsius we had yesterday. After a good watering I picked a few blooms to enjoy in case the rest of the were ravaged in the heat. The watering worked and the plants survived in their pots, which now have much larger and deeper saucers.

I pruned the hydrangea in this photo very hard last winter except for one especially strong tall stem. I now know this particular variety only flowers on 'old wood'. The tall stem has produced a few beautiful pink flower heads and lots of lush looking leaves lower down where the drastic pruning took place. I am sure some of you who have grown hydrangeas for some time will already know this.

Once picked, I quickly arranged three blooms in a tall porcelain vase by Phil Elson. I then felt that the mass of these flowers was so great that they needed some lines to balance them.

I had saved the stems pruned from the hydrangeas last winter. They have sat outside in the sun and rain in the garden and have bleached naturally. Taking inspiration from my friend colleague, Kath Dacy, I realised that the stems would be a good foil for the coloured masses.

Sitting at the back of my mind was this ikebana Kath had made for the Sogetsu exhibition in 2013, a typically strong and modern work. One of the lessons for me was that pruned hydrangea stems are very useful ikebana material.

For my arrangement I bundled the bleached stems, forming lines moving in the same direction. Two branching stems running in one direction and two in the opposite direction, thus created an almost elliptical shape. Although it is not apparent in the photo, the branch mass projects forward on the left side. I have added a single pink hydrangea at the front to enhance the pink flush at the bottom of the vase and two blue hydrangeas at the back as a contrast. The vase, which I also used for my New Year arrangement is by Mark Bell, from Maine USA.

Greetings from Christopher
26th January 2019

We are expecting a top of 37 degrees celsius today...

...and so decided to have an early morning walk on the beach before breakfast. The cloudless sky meant that the overnight temperature was low and the house should remain fairly cool. Because we have daylight saving at this time of year I was able to do some watering in the garden after dinner last night. The potted plants have water in their saucers and should survive the heat.

A couple of days ago while out for a walk I noticed the bright yellow-green flowers on a eucalyptus, possibly E. macrandra.

The flowers were very bright with the late afternoon sun directly on them. They grow in clusters which are quite heavy. As they are borne on fine stems they tend to hang beautifully.

The flower growth is similar to, but smaller and finer than, the Bushy Yate, E.lehmanii, having a long operculum or bud cap covering the stamens. In the photo above you can see the stamens at the base of the cap before it is forced off by their growth. Notice the one in the centre of the photo and then look at the next image.

I removed the cap and the stamens immediately fanned out, and over the next few hours spread further. Another feature of this intriguing flower is that it has a beautiful sweet scent that carries well within the room, making the plant an interesting ikebana subject.

In this simple ikebana I have arranged three of the stems, removing most of the leaves in the process. The tall bottle-shaped vase of yellow glass has a gentle 'S' curve going to the right toward the top. I therefore counterbalanced this movement by arranging the flowers in a cascade to the left front. The colour in this photo is quite true, whereas in the close-up with a white background the colour is washed-out. The one small leaf going to the right at the mouth of the vase prevents that side from looking flat.

This year marks the 60th anniversary of Ikebana International Melbourne, Chapter 29. The new Iemoto of the Ichiyo School of Ikebana, Mr Naohiro Kasuya, will be the special guest at a luncheon to be held on the 28th March 2019. If you can make it to the event, follow this link to purchase tickets. I.I. Melbourne's 60th anniversary celebrations.

Greetings from Christopher
3rd January 2019

This afternoon I had walk in the Royal Botanic Gardens in Melbourne...

...and was greeted by this planting of cosmos in the rose garden bed.

I had gone into the Gardens as I was curious to see what colour the flowers on a huge bromeliad were. I had noticed its flower spike developing a few weeks ago.

To my surprise, they were white. The flowers of many of the smaller species of bromeliads are highly colourful and often strange looking. None-the-less, this large variety is beautiful and spectacular for its size. The flower spike was a good 2 metres tall. This seems to be an Alcantarea species in the Bromeliad family.

The afternoon was perfect and I was not the only one enjoying the surrounds of the Gardens.

Meanwhile, back in Torquay, each day as I walk into the entrance of our house I pass a bunch of dried Honesty seed pods, Lunaria annua. I had gathered the seeds from my niece’s garden, which is in a much wetter part of Victoria than Torquay. To succeed, I had to grow them in a pot with a good water reservoir.

I remember in my childhood being delighted by the septums of these seed pods which are translucent discs with a silvery sheen, as shown in this detail above from an earlier arrangement. They were a popular item in the dried arrangements of the 1960s.

What I have enjoyed in seeing them every day is the texture and colour of the seed pod covering. It is a purply-mauve with a rather parchment like texture. Because the dried material is so stiff I have avoided arranging it. However, I thought the colour was beginning to fade and decided to use it before I missed the opportunity.

My intention was that the focus of my arrangement would be texture as much as colour. This brought to mind the velvety brown heads of the bullrushes in the creek. I gathered some that are fairly thin and which had an unusual curve.

Because of the relatively deep colours of the materials I decided to use a tall black nageire vessel with two side openings. This enabled me to seperate the ikebana into two distinct but complementary sides. One being for massed dried materials and the other fresh materials with a linear form. An arrangement using both Fresh and Dried Materials is a Sogetsu School curriculum exercise. I have added two long green leaves for their fresh appearance on the right and two artichoke heads on the left side for their colour and mass. One of the artichokes is obscured in this photograph.

Greetings from Christopher

10th February 2019

The exercise I set in the first class, this year, for my advanced students was a 'summer arrangement emphasising water'. This is a lovely exercise at this time of year and invites the use of glass vessels or suibans that show an expansive surface of water.

Of course there are other more tangential ways of doing the exercise. Below are four examples from different classes.

Kim has gone for a rather minimalist approach, using a shallow glass serving dish. It is not clear in the photo, but he has filled the small recess in the centre of the dish with water. He then placed three short, cut stems at one end of the dish. Teasingly, he has placed a single aspidistra leaf underneath the other end of the dish.

Gianna has used an extra large black suiban, in which she has arranged two gardenias as a focal point in a design created with four stems placed across the vessel.

Val has arranged two pale orange roses under the water in a small rectangular glass vase.

Margaret has used a tall glass cylinder, in which she has floated the large outer petals of an intense pink gerbera. The, now smaller, remainder of the flower sits at the opening of the vase. These elements are contrasted with the line of a vine, which has green leaves with a variegated white patterning.

On Monday last week I attended the first meeting for 2019 of Ikebana International Melbourne Chapter. The guest speaker was a sumi-e (Japanese ink brush painting) artist, Emi Kamataki. Members were asked to make ikebana arrangements reflecting this subject.

I thought I would use bamboo as this is such a beautiful and popular subject in sumi-e. A particularly attractive variety is growing through our fence from a neighbour's garden. It has variegated pale stems with fine green longitudinal lines.

It was the first time I remember using fresh bamboo in ikebana, as the leaves curl very rapidly after picking; but not, however, if you use the following technique recommended to me by a couple of my students: Cut the bamboo early in the morning. When you have brought it inside, cut the stem again underwater and immediately place it in a mug half-filled with hot water containing a teaspoon of dissolved salt. Leave it in the salty water for at least 15 minutes and then place in room temperature fresh water.

My simple ikebana has two tall stems with most of the leaves removed to emphasise the stems. Lower leaves conceal the kenzan and some small off-white begonia flowers create a focus at the edge of the suiban.

See more photos from the meeting at the following link, Ikebana International Melbourne.

Greetings from Christopher
17th February 2019

This week I set my Geelong students the Sogetsu curriculum exercise of 'Using leaves only'. I enjoy this exercise as it is one in which we are encouraged to look carefully at the material and observe its natural qualities of colour, texture and pliability.

The text book says '...leaves can give an entirely different impression by showing their reverse side...'. We are encouraged to explore their plasticity by, '...cutting, tearing, rolling or overlapping them...'. This comment brings to my mind the caution of Mr Umemura at a workshop once, when he said that if you are going to change the appearance of leaves then you have to enhance their beauty, because nature made them perfect in the first place.

Ellie has used a large 'fan' palm leaf, characterised by radiating lines, against which she has contrasted Maranta leuconeura leaves, the reverse side of which are a deep maroon.

Christine arranged two Strelitzia leaves in a dark grey rectangular box-shaped vessel. She has added rolled and knotted maroon Cordyline leaves in the fold of the front Strelitzia leaf, to create a quirky modern arrangement. The tip of another cordyline leaf projects to the right from the second strelitzia leaf.

On Monday I attended the Annual General Meeting of the Victorian Branch of the Sogetsu School of Ikebana (SSIV). We were pleased to welcome 38 members, including 5 new and 2 returning members over the last 12 months. Following the meeting a workshop was led by Angeline Lo on the theme of a 'No kenzan' arrangement in a suiban.

This is my re-constructed arrangement at home. I used some pittosporum branches that were quite fine and rather flexible; probably not the best material for the exercise. For the focal point I used some unidentified blue flowers. More photos can be seen at SSIV AGM meeting.

A couple of weeks ago I found a single stem of Belladonna flowers, Amaryllis belladonna growing by the nearby creek. In our garden the flowers have not appeared, because of the extra dry season. My grandmother always associated this flower with my birthday in mid-February.

I picked the flower and arranged it with the blue-grey leaves of a succulent in a rarely used bowl. The bowl is by Ray Pearce a very skilled and imaginative potter who has lived and worked in the Bendigo area for many years.

A week later the some of the flowers had drooped so I re-worked the arrangement. It was good to get some extra life out of these long-lasting materials.

Greetings from Christopher
23rd February 2019

Here on the Surf Coast of Victoria, and across the state, we are having a sudden late hot-spell with four consecutive days in the mid to high 30s celsius. It has taken a good bit of attention to keep the pot-plants alive, as well as the exotic northern hemisphere plants which are planted out in the ground.

This sulphur-crested cockatoo decided to use the freshly-filled bird-bath, even though I had moved it closer to the house at the end of January. I think it was monitoring my movements in spite of the fact that I was some metres away inside the house.

Near the house is an intermittent creek where the council has landscaped a linear park and created a winding path running along its course. Most of the trees in this photo are indigenous and were planted as part of these improvement works.

Further along the creek a bridge crosses a swampy section where bullrushes and 'common reeds', Phragmites australis, grow very densely. In this part of the parkland there is quite a variety of garden escapees...

...and weeds that are useful to the ikebanist.

I had these materials in mind when I set my students the exercise of making an arrangement 'using a variety of summer grasses'. I really enjoy using these weedy materials as they have a beauty that is easily overlooked by the casual passer-by.

At my Geelong class, Ellie made this arrangement using 5 grasses, one of which had an umbelliferous head that is, almost completely, obscured by the mass of the papyrus head at the front. Poor photography on my part.

Maureen created a vertical arrangement of tall grasses and emphasised its asymmetry by contrasting the two sides. On the left-hand side she created a series of descending lines by cutting reeds straight across and exposing the white pith within them.

My own example of the exercise uses materials gathered along the creek. I made the arrangement a couple of weeks ago having noticed the rose hips and fennel earlier. By the time I collected them they had already passed their peak, however they still had sufficient vibrancy of colour.

In this exercise, with a variety of materials, we are advised to choose the colours carefully, otherwise the work can look too busy. Apart from the green stems and leaves, I have only used 'warm' colours. The materials are: bull rush and four naturalised plants: fennel, rose hips, crocosima and dockweed. The vessel is an unusual second-hand Japanese ikebana vase that I bought at the February meeting of Ikebana International Melbourne.

Greetings from Christopher
3rd March 2019

This week I am continuing the previous theme of 'a variety of summer materials'. I had originally asked the students in my Melbourne class to make an arrangement with grasses, but then broadened it to include materials not strictly in the grasses category. In my own arrangement, shown last week, I had included rose-hips.

At the class the students worked quite quickly to produce three attractive naturalistic arrangements. I was a bit surprised with their speed, and that these students usually make ikebana with a more contemporary feel. It made me think that the materials themselves, and the tradition of using summer or autumn grasses, had unconsciously influenced them into working naturalistically. I also realised that we still had plenty of class time left, so I asked them to photograph their ikebana and then re-work the materials into a modern-styled ikebana.

Re-working the materials was an exercise that my first Sogetsu teacher, Carlyne Patterson, sometimes unexpectedly asked of the class. It is a good challenge as the student does not have the opportunity to plan or over-think the work.

Robyn first made this ikebana using three grassy materials plus some Kiwi vine and crucifix orchid. Her second arrangement is below.

As she had brought a large amount of materials, I lent her a larger vase in which she made this arrangement without using the feathery grasses.

Eugenia arranged three grasses plus New Zealand Flax and a mauve crucifix orchid in a contemporary ikebana vessel.

When she re-worked her materials she also reduced their number and reversed the vessel so that its opening faced away from the viewer. Doing that better emphasised the lines at the base of the ikebana.

Margaret's first ikebana had strong autumnal colouring and included a dried stem with an attractive seed-head. The shape of her vessel restricted the kenzan placement to the centre.

I therefore suggested that she use a suiban for her re-working of the materials. Using two kenzans allowed her to have two strong lines that crossed.

At the end of our discussions during the critique, Eugenia made the observation that Margaret's work would look stronger with only one long cascading line. We all liked this final version of Margaret's ikebana.

I was interested that the re-working of the initial materials freed up the students and resulted in much bolder arrangements. Of course they no longer conformed to the idea of a 'variety of materials' arrangement, which requires a minimum of five materials.

Greetings from Christopher
10th March 2019

MIFGS

In the garden a few weeks ago I noticed that the Sedum, given to me by my student Christine, was just starting to open its flowers. I was delighted because this year the flower seemed large enough to pick, whereas in its first year the flowers were quite small.

The slightly open flowers seemed to glow in the late afternoon sunlight.

Three weeks later the flowers had opened along the whole stem. Fortunately, I picked this stem before the recent hot weather occurred and it has kept well in a vase for a couple of weeks. The remaining flowers on the plant have now browned a little.

My student Val, who also grows rather beautiful sedum, was recently trimming the rather large strelitzia in her garden and I managed to save a few leaves from the green waste bin. It occurred to me that the rather matt surface of the strelitzia would complement the pale pink sedum.

I have arranged them both here in a black vase so that part of the paler underside of the leaf is visible. The strelitzia leaf which has a beautiful 'S' curve and projects quite a way forward as does the long stem of sedum that makes a contrasting mass on the left side. The vase is by Cor and Jan de Veth who worked in Cairns in the mid 1970's.

I subsequently made a second arrangement contrasting the sedum with a naturally angular line of acacia baileyana. The classical bottle-shaped vase is by Barry Singleton from Castlemaine.

On researching Sedum I was interested to note in the Wikipedia article that the original genus has been divided into three genera. Keeping track of these details must be a major challenge for serious Botanists.

On Tuesday last, Ikebana International Melbourne, Chapter No 29, celebrated its 60th anniversary; a very considerable accomplishment. Follow this link to photos from the Birthday Meeting.

Greetings from Christopher
17th March 2019

Over the past few months, along with other members of the Ikebana International (I.I.) Melbourne Committee, I have been preparing to celebrate the 60th anniversary of our organisation. Planning for this event began in the middle of 2017.

Early discussions lead to an invitation being extended to the then Iemoto (headmaster) designate of the Ichiyo School of Ikebana to be our special guest at these celebrations. It is also the 30th anniversary of the Melbourne Branch of the Ichiyo School. Our guest, Mr Naohiro KASUYA, is now the Iemoto of the Ichiyo School.

Since 2003 the Melbourne Chapter of I.I. has participated in the Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show, held in the World Heritage Site-listed building, the Royal Melbourne Exhibition Building. This year I am the team leader for the Sogetsu School at this event.

As it is a significant birthday for I.I. Melbourne, we have been able to secure three continuous sites for our installations that represent the five active schools of ikebana in Melbourne. The Ichiyo School has been given the main central site, and the four other schools share the sites on either side - two to a site.

This is the first model of what could be achieved with eight 3 metre lengths of bamboo. I thought I would share with you the evolution of the Sogetsu School's design. All schools are using bamboo with a maximum length of 3 metres and which is about 10cm in diameter. We are also using fresh materials to reflect the Autumn season.

Above is the first design to scale from the model, with seasonal materials indicated.

We were given three bamboo poles to test our design ideas and fixing techniques.

This was the next design sketch. However, because of the requirement to avoid damage to the wooden floor of the heritage-listed building, we realised that the supporting poles had to be vertical rather than slightly slanted.

This is the third model, which was taken to the site when we began the set up today.

It took about four hours to get to this stage.

But finally we were confident that it was sufficiently stable...

...that it could stand alone.

Thanks to the rest of the team, Lara, Gauri, Julie and Margaret. More photos next week of the completed installation .

Belated greetings from Christopher.
24th March 2019

As I mentioned in last week's posting, Ikebana International Melbourne was given three adjacent sites at this year's Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show. This was in recognition of the 60th anniversary of our Chapter and allowed each school to create a large installation on the theme of 'Green Bamboo and Autumn'. The Ichiyo School had an 8 metre width in the centre of the site and the other four schools had 3 x 3 metres.

This photo shows the length of the whole site when almost everyone had finished working on the last set-up day. Because the site was 20 metres long it is impossible to take a front on photo. In order from the left the schools are: Sogetsu, Ikenobo, Ichiyo, Ohara and Shogetsudo Koryu.

The photo above taken in the transept also gives some idea of the magnificent structure that is the Great Hall of the 1880 Royal Exhibition Building.

At the right-hand end of the site was the Shogetsudo Koryu installation. Six long bamboo poles were arranged at an angle creating a dynamic sense of movement. Fine strips of bamboo cascade from the tops of the bamboo with flowers cascading on the right-hand side.

Next was the Ohara School with bamboo radiating from a central mass of chrysanthemums, maple branches and arching branches of rose-hips.

The Ichiyo installation was a progression of torii gates in unpainted wood in a long 'S' curve across the site. These were adorned with a variety of branches and autumn materials. At the centre was a large basin of still water across the top of which sat a large piece of gnarled wood and a branch of deep green camellia leaves.

The Ikenobo School was to the left of the torii gates. Their installation used strong vertical lines of green bamboo. Two stands were clustered together with pine and maple the main elements.

A two-tier bamboo vase at the front of the space held two shoka arrangements of dutch iris.

At the far left of the site was the Sogetsu School installation. Added to the structure I showed last week are branches of hawthorn berries and two masses of red dwarf nandina, a larger one at the front and smaller at the right rear.

Our installation was at the end of the site and able to be seen from the left side as well. This left an open space toward the left rear that was emphasised by having a single curve of split bamboo passing through. The photo above was taken while standing on a ladder to 'silhouette' the work against the back wall.

Greetings from Christopher
31st March 2019

Last week I had intended to mention that the Sogetsu installation at the Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show could be thought of as a large scale version of a 'no kenzan' arrangement in the Sogetsu style.

The emphasis in this case is on the vertical lines with a focal mass placed high in the arrangement.

Here is an example I have shown before. I made this 'no kenzan' ikebana at a workshop I gave in New Zealand four years ago. This practise of making an arrangement in a suiban without using a kenzan is one of the exercises in the Sogetsu curriculum. A closely related exercise is 'Showing or emphasising lines at the base' of the arrangement.

In both of these exercises the space created within the suiban becomes important and draws attention to the surface of the water. In the Sogetsu School it is permissible to use a variety of fixing techniques, including wiring, as long as the fixing is very discreet and not noticeable.

One of the events at Ikebana International Melbourne's 60th celebrations a week ago was a members'-only workshop given by Mr Naohiro Kasuya, the Iemoto of the Ichiyo School. His topic was an arrangement in a suiban 'without using a kenzan'.

Interestingly, this turned out to be a subtle distinction. The Iemoto asked us to think about the exercise as making an ikebana arrangement in a suiban, or other shallow vessel, in which we were using nageire techniques. That is, the sort of fixing techniques usually used in tall vessels. Then photo above shows the Iemoto critiquing one of the participants.

All of the workshop attendees were given 4 or 5 stems of tortuous willow, salix matsudana, and then were able to choose flowers to use as an accent in the arrangement.

In my arrangement I have curved the bottoms of the stems to create arches which I braced against the sides of the traditional-style ceramic suiban. I wanted the curves to reflect the circular form of the suiban and also create an open space to show the water surface. I finally added three stems of white snapdragon, antirrhinum, which also curved well to follow the lines in the arrangement.

Greetings from Christopher

6th April 2019

Thank you to Helen Mariott for the photo of the Iemoto.

On Monday two weeks ago, the Sogetsu Branch workshop was led by Helen Quarrell. The theme she chose was 'miniature ikebana'. This is a concept that was developed by the Sogetsu School's second Iemoto, Kasumi Teshigahara.

Her idea was that by using very small vessels the ikebanist would arrange botanical elements, rather than make arrangements in the traditional sense. The elements could be a single leaf, flower, seed-pod, stem or even just a part of one of these. In one of her examples the Iemoto used a single stamen from a flower. In this way miniature ikebana shares ideas with the curriculum exercise of 'Deconstruction and re-arrangement'.

These two photos show Helen's demonstration examples at the workshop. The 'arrangement' aspect of the exercise comes from the considered placement of the materials on a board, platter or cloth, on which the work is set. Helen made the observation that this is an interesting way of making ikebana when the physical space is very limited.

This is my example arranged on a cloth base provided by my colleague Barbara. I had left my lacquered stand behind and had to improvise. One of the delights of this exercise is choosing little objects as vessels that are not thought of as 'vases' and also may have special meaning to the ikebanist. My vessels included two sake cups, a box, a test-tube, an ornamental bottle cap, a serviette ring and small ceramic vessels that were given to me by friends.

This link will take you to more photos from the workshop. Emily Karanikolopoulos also has some lovely photos on her blog: Emily in Tokyo.

Greetings from Christopher

13th April 2019

The weather here on the south coast has been unseasonably warm with quite a few days in the high 20sC and even the low 30sC in recent weeks. However, some of the nights have been cool enough to give autumn colour to various plants in our garden.

This is the Boston Ivy Parthenocissus tricuspidata, that grows on a wall near our front entrance. It is a very satisfactory replacement for a climbing ficus that had started to damage the brick work.

Being deciduous it also rewards us with seasonal colour change and a scattering of leaves on the path at this time of year.

This photo shows the ornamental grape on a frame. It has some well coloured leaves. However since I planted it into the ground last winter it has suffered with the very hot weather over the summer. In the foreground of the photo is a flourishing Miscanthus sinensus 'Zebrinus'. It was given to me by an ikebana colleague Margaret L. and is only surviving because it is in a pot that I can manage to keep moist.

The prize-winner for colour is this hydrangea that was given to me by Rosemary and David. Again, only surviving in our garden by being kept moist in a pot and sheltered against a south-facing wall.

What amazes me is that the photo above shows the same plant in the first week of January. As you can see the flowers initially are quite a pale pink.

With these latter two treasures in the garden what else did I need for the 'Autumn in a basket' theme at the April meeting of Ikebana International. The unusual Japanese basket is quite dark and almost spherical in for. It seemed to have sufficient mass to take such large and strongly coloured flowers.

Greetings from Christopher
21st January 2019

Last week we visited friends who live near Port Fairy, a couple of hundred kilometres west along the coast from Torquay.

Low sand dunes separate our friends' property from the beach. A famous landmark in the area is Tower Hill, an extinct volcano, which has a nature reserve within the caldera.

Seen here from a high point within the nature reserve, the caldera lake is in the middle distance and the flat coastline in the far distance. The Tower Hill Reserve had become badly degraded in the early part of the 20th century, but is now famous for the significant environmental restoration that has been achieved over the last 40 years. One of the interesting information resources in the restoration process was a large landscape painting from the 1850s that showed the flora and fauna present at that time.

Here three emus are grazing beside the visitor centre.

Four years ago we visited this reserve with our Canadian friends, Dick, (Laurie), Leonora, and Eleanor.

This time we saw a kangaroo grazing at the top of one of the hills.

Meanwhile back in the Torquay garden...

...this eucalyptus tree needed to be rather severely pruned because it was crowding a Cook Pinearaucaria columnaris. The pine is in the same family as the Norfolk Island pine.

The Cook Pine is in the centre of this photo and some of the pruning is apparent on the eucalypt on the right.

When the arborist dropped some of the lopped branches on the driveway, I noticed that there were masses of flower buds that I had not seen in the high branches.

I could not resist gathering a few small branches because of the striking brick red of the flower caps that were about to fall off. They teamed beautifully with this vase by the Sydney ikebanist and potter, Margaret Hall.

Greetings from Christopher

27th April 2019

The beginning of this year has been the driest on record and the exotic plants in the garden have needed extra attention and water to keep them in reasonable health.

On the 4th April the beach looked quite idyllic and rather summery for autumn. The weather was so mild and the sea so calm that the start of the Bell's Beach Rip Curl Surfing Pro had to be postponed for several days.

However, the weather changed three weeks later creating big seas and widely spaced waves.

This is Bird rock in summer mode a few years ago...

... and then at high tide when the waves were rolling.

In this photo Bird Rock can be seen from the other direction and the cliff-hugging plants that are able to tolerate the prevailing westerly winds of winter.

It is such wintry weather conditions that result in Moonah melaleuca lanceolata, growing such beautiful branches.

This week's ikebana features two more heads of the Hydrangea macrophyla (that I used a couple of weeks ago in a basket arrangement), and a branch of Moonah.

When thinking about arranging the hydrangea I realised that it would work well with the large green bowl-shaped vessel made by Isabella Wang. Because the arrangement was to be placed in the 'niche' in the living room I had to take into account that it would be seen through 180 degrees. The photos below are against a back-drop.

This first photo shows the view of the arrangement when coming from the kitchen.

This view is directly from the front...

...and the final view is from the right hand side. I was pleased that in each of the views there was open space to be seen at the lip of the vessel.

This was the second version of the arrangement. Unfortunately I did not photograph the first version that had three large triangular lines, made from papyrus stems, projecting above the rim of the vessel. When I removed them, because they looked wrong, the thought came to me that I should 'let the materials speak for themselves'. The lines were an additional design element that did not relate to the materials. It made me think about Norman Sparnon's question '...What is the purpose..' of the ikebana?

These days I re-frame this question to, what is the subject of the ikebana? In this case it was the hydrangea, not my other design ideas.

Greetings from Christopher

5th May 2019

One group of my students are members of the University of the Third Age (U3A) where I live in Torquay. As this is a community organisation, we share facilities with other organisations. Last week, unexpectedly, our class room was not available. A quick change of plans led to holding the class at home, creating an additional layer of complexity. We had also to think about where the ikebana was to be sited.

I had set the students the exercise of making an arrangement using two kinds of berries. Of course all the arrangements were richly autumnal. You will note that all the students had gathered cotoneaster berries that are readily available locally. When it came time to photograph the arrangements, I moved most of them to the niche in the living room.

Judy used some particularly large rose-hips from her garden, which she massed and contrasted with a line of cotoneaster branch.

Val also used two slanting lines of cotoneaster berriesand two small masses of black berries from an unidentified plant.

Helen T used the large surface of some strelitzia leaves as a background to highlight her bright red cotoneaster berries. Her small black coloured berries are massed at the base.

Marta used two branches of cotoneaster berries and a mass of pittosporum in the centre of her ikebana.

Kim set his ikebana on a low wooden box. He chose as his vessel a two-level bamboo steamer, that sat on a ceramic bowl to give the work additional lightness. His materials were cotoneaster berries, a small branch with black olives and a mass of acacia baileyana.

The next series of photos are from a class I attended with my teacher, Elizabeth. Last week we were given the exercise of creating an ikebana work using 'Green Plant Materials' only. This exercise is from the advanced curriculum in the Sogetsu school.

Dianne used some long leaves, asparagus fern and a lime branch with a single fruit arranged in a tall black vessel.

Swan arranged variegated aspidistra leaves and small chrysanthemum flowers in two matching green glass cylinders.

I had collected some reeds and stripped their leaves off as I wanted to show the variations in the green on the stems. I have varied the texture by adding dark-green clivia leaves for the breadth of their surfaces. The vessel is a stainless steel cone with irregularly placed holes.

Greetings from Christopher
12th May 2019

Yesterday, Laurie and I visited some friends at Anglesea which is the next town along the coast west of Torquay. The township is surrounded on the north and west by a state park incorporating the Anglesea Heath and bushland. The bushland seems to flow into the township the way a garden can flow into a well designed house. As a consequence, there is an abundance of native flora and fauna. When we turned the corner into the street where our friends live we were surprised to see three Eastern Gray Kangaroos hopping across the road.

Meet 'Erica', in the red collar and blue ear tag. She and one of her 'adolescent' young were photographed by Laurie feeding as they foraged in our friends' front garden. Their vegetable garden has avery high fence!

These kangaroos are easily seen on the Angelsea Golf Course where they enjoy the nourishing short grass. The mob is monitored by research scientists from Melbourne University's Zoology Department, who have tagged and identified many of the animals.

What is the connection with ikebana? The unique art of ikebana that has come to us from Japan is grounded in an appreciation of the natural world. It is also able to address the relationship of humankind to the natural world. At a recent class I attended, Elizabeth set us the exercise of making an arrangement that incorporated a man-made product, paper.

This photo shows the work of Pearl, one of my fellow students. She has carefully rolled black and fawn card into small straw- like tubes which she has then joined together. The massed lines that she has made had a lovely texture that contrasted with the spiralling vessel and the dahlias.

For my arrangement I decided to use newspaper, because it is so ubiquitous that we don't usually think about it after we have read the news. I am intrigued with the properties of paper. Especially that such thin flimsy sheets can have considerable strength when rolled, folded or even scrunched. I used this conical metal vase so that I could show that the paper could support its own weight and appear to be blowing in the breeze.

Last weekend I attended a Saturday workshop of the Melbourne Ikebana International Chapter that was led by Emily Karanikolopoulos. She set the theme of an ikebana arrangement that represents a particular movement. This idea is taken from the advanced curriculum of the Sogetsu School.

This was my work that, as I hope you have guessed, represents the movement of 'zigzagging'. I have used the stems only of umbrella grass, cyperus alternifolius. I think this is ikebana as sculpture. This is because the material has been reduced to straight green lines and is not easily identifiable. Although I did experiment with adding a flower, the effect was to weaken the ikebana.

Click here for more photos of the Saturday workshop.

Greetings from Christopher
18th May 2019

SUMMER GARDENS

GOOD NEIGHBOURS

STRONG LINES

HYDRANGEAS SAVED FROM THE HEAT

SOME EUCALYPTUS FLOWERS

FRESH AND DRIED MATERIALS

COOLING WATER in SUMMER

A VARITEY of SOGETSU IKEBANA STYLES

A VARIETY OF SUMMER MATERIALS

A CHANGE IN PLANS

SOME SEDUM

IKEBANA ON ANOTHER SCALE

GREEN BAMBOO and AUTUMN

ARRANGEMENTS WITHOUT USING A KENZAN

MINIATURE IKEBANA

SIGNS OF AUTUMN

OUT AND ABOUT

LET THE MATERIALS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES

FROM THE CLASSES

A MOB OF KANGAROOS