After a late night watching the New Year Eve's fireworks, we had a walk this morning in the Royal Melbourne Botanic Gardens.
This photo shows the skyscrapers in the centre of the city, seen from the garden.
My attention was caught by this low hanging branch of flowers on a brachychiton acerifolius * .
These flowering branches are especially vivid because their small branchlets are also the same intense colour as the little bell-shaped flowers.
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After a couple of warm days in the mid 30's C we have been blessed with some unusually heavy rain for this time of year. As a result, in the garden at Torquay, the scabiosa * has gone a little wild. This is a desirable state according to the great Australian gardener of the early 20th century, Edna Walling * , who recommended that a garden have some of the plants that are slightly out of control.
This particular scabiosa, that has naturalised in our garden, is a cultivar called 'Summer Berries' and has a range of colour from maroon to very pale pink.
I had tried to make an ikebana work using this flower a few weeks ago when it first began to flower. However, I found it wilted very quickly. Now, after the recent hot weather, it has hardened off and I have been able to cut some stems that have not wilted.
I thought it would make a good subject for the Sogetsu curriculum exercise of a naturalistic arrangement of 'colours in the same tonal range'. The narrow porcelain trough is by Hiroe Swen * , a Japanese-born Australian ceramic artist.
Greeting from Christopher
New Year's Day 2017.
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