Earlier in the week Laurie and I were walking in the Botanic Gardens in Melbourne when we came across this Gymea lily Doreanthes excelsa in flower. The plant is a favourite of mine and I have a small one in my garden, a gift of Emily Karanikolopoulos. It is such a spectacle when in flower and the flower head is wonderful in a large arrangement. However, it is the leaves that many ikebanists use more often.
Interestingly, the gardeners have left last year's flower on the plant, perhaps to allow seeds to form. I thought I should show a photo with Laurie in it to give you a sense of scale. This is not at all the tallest one I have seen.
Today, Saturday, we went for a walk in 'Iron Bark Basin' - a nature reserve a few kilometres west of Torquay. This small hanging valley above Pt Addis beach has a forest of mostly 'Ironbark' eucalyptus tricarpa and Messmate. Both of these common names are given to a number of similar eucalyptus species.
In this view the sea is visible between the trees.
We also came across another spectacular flowering plant, a Grass Tree xanthorea. Again, Laurie provides a sense of scale.
The flower spike is covered in numerous small starry white flowers.
From the high cliffs overlooking the sea, Point Addis sits at the end of a long, beautiful and sheltered beach.
On Tuesday I attended a class with Elizabeth Angell, who had set the exercise of making an ikebana arrangement for a specific place. Earlier in the day I had raided my sister-in-law's garden where I had found a beautiful 'White myrtle' hypocalymma angustifolium, from Western Australia. It is a low bush with arching branches that were covered with rich pink buds that opened to white flowers and small narrow leaves.
The space I had chosen is a low 'entertainment unit' with a painting above that constrained the height of the work. Above, is the ikebana as I made it in the class. I added three looped dietes leaves to one side to emphasise the sense of asymmetry and movement.
Here it is in situ on the unit underneath the Moon and Star ochre painting by the indigenous artist Mabel Juli.
As you can see, I also added a single pink camelia to give the ikebana a more solid mass near the centre to ground the work. The celadon vase is by Anne Geroe.
Greetings from Christopher
6th October 2018
Oh my gosh, I have never seen anything like that Gymea lily! I would never have imagined the height if Laurie wasn’t standing near it. Those leaves would be fun to work with in Ikebana. The grass tree is another plant I have never seen either, thanks for sharing these with us.
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