WHILE IN PERTH

A stroll through Kings Park Botanical Garden in Perth on Saturday morning offered views of the city and the Swan River as well as numerous beautiful banksias, of which there seem to be so many spectacular examples in Western Australia. I learned that 90% of all 170 banksia species occur only in south western area of Western Australia.








  





Below, the city from Kings Park Garden.
    

I was intrigued to come across this bush of Spinifex Longifolius, native to Western Australia apparently. It is beautiful for the density of its seed heads and is very similar to the introduced Marram Grass that grows in the sand dunes in Victoria.


My attention was caught also by this bright yellow flowering eucalyptus 





...and one of my favourites, eucalyptus macrocarpa I took the photo below, of the Macrocarpa flower, in June 2008 when we spent a couple of nights in Perth before going to Broome. It was not in flower at the time we visited the garden last week. However its leaves, which are a beautiful silvery blue-green, have a wonderful sculptural quality that look splendid anytime.   



We came across this large bush of Eucalyptus Macrocarpa in a private garden in Norseman, our first night stop on the journey back across the continent. 






On  last Saturday afternoon I spent a couple of hours with members of the Western Australian Branch of the Sogetsu School and had an opportunity to give a ‘slide-show’ presentation of the three months I spent in Tokyo in 2011. Below are some beautiful examples of ikebana created by Dav Rangel who kindly hosted the afternoon event in her home.







In January a website was established by the Western Australian Branch of the Sogetsu School Teachers Association. The 'activities' page has some photos of past exhibitions, check it out.


Also please look at Emily Karanikolopoulos' latest posting from Tokyo. I have provided links to both of these websites on the righthand side of this page. 

If you click on the blue highlighted text you may see more photos of our travels: Coming Home.

Greetings from Christopher
29th March 2014

2 comments:

  1. It is so interesting to see how eucalyptus grows and I have never seen the flower before. I would love to use the marram grass heads in an arrangement.

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    1. Deaar Gail, I quite agree about the marram grass. I have only used it as a Christmas decoration in the past. However, it has great ikebana possibilities. Glad you have enjoyed the other images as well.
      Regards,
      Christopher

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