AUTUMNAL HYDRANGEA

At my Torquay class last week I had set an exercise requiring the students to use two vessels in which to create their ikebana and to incorporate some 'unconventional' (man made) material. This class includes some new students, so it was a considerable challenge. The photos are of the ikebana works with adjustments made following my critique.

The two particular difficulties in the exercise are to make a unified work in which both vessels play a part. The second is that the unconventional materials are essential to the design such that the ikebana would look incomplete if they were removed.

Jean used two white vessels of different shapes. Her unconventional material is metal strapping that is used to stabilise walls that are made in wooden-framed houses. The botanical material is seaweed. 

Marta has also used two non-matching white vessels. The unconventional material is rubberised netting that on the left side is wrapped around bamboo. The botanical materials are dark maroon succulent, Aeonium "Zwartkop".

Marian also used Aeonium, though a different and more commonly seen variety. She said the succulents made her think of Mexican desert scenes, which influenced her in the choice of vessels and the bright coloured unconventional materials.

Judith used a black ceramic stand and a dark metal urn-shaped vessel. Her unconventional material is a black net string-bag supported on a length of bamboo. The botanical materials are Aeonium, and leaves of a variegated Dracaena, probably D. fragrans 'Lemon Lime'.

In the garden, as we come to the end of Autumn, there are a few exotic plants with colourful leaves that I thought I could include in this weeks ikebana.

The first is on one of the Hydrangeas. I successfully struck two cuttings of this plant, undoubtedly H. macrophylla, however I do not know which variety.

 

The leaves on the apricot tree are a lovely yellow especially with the sun coming through them this afternoon. However they are very limp and fall easily from the branch when being arranged.

This leaf is from the self-sown apple, more of a bush than a tree. It struggles to exist as it is underneath the apricot and only about 20cm from its large trunk. The colours are delightful and the leaf attachment to the branch is more robust than the apricot.
 

The ikebana I created this morning features a large Hydrangea flower, from Rosemary and David's garden. Here on the coast were it is exposed to more harsh conditions the autumn colour is much darker than its parent.

I have set the single flowerhead to the left front and a long branch from the apple to the right. The leaves graduate from green through yellow and orange to a deep maroon. In the centre is a rich, orange-tipped leaf of the Hydrangea.

The ceramic vase is by the Katherine (Northern Territory) based artist Dan Murphy. I was introduced to his work by Ray Bywaters, when I presented workshops to the South Australian Sogetsu Branch earlier this year. I would also recommend this article about Dan Murphy from the ABC.

Greetings from Christopher

30th May 2021

"A WEEKEND IN THE COUNTRY"

This weekend we travelled inland to Marcia and Chris's house at Yea, just over 100 kms north of Melbourne. The journey took us through the Yarra Valley, one of the wine growing regions of Victoria. It is a really lovely pastoral area with rolling hills, mixed farming, vineyards and patches of forrest. The area has an annual rainfall over 40% higher than Torquay, making it a very different countryside compared to the coastal area where we live. 

The hills were still rather misty at lunch time on Saturday creating a landscape that faded into the distance.

On our walk around the garden, the eucalyptus trees in the neighbouring property had lost their colour and texture because of the mist.

Earlier in the morning, the 'mist' was serious fog, a wall of grey which prevented us from seeing anything beyond the boundaries of the garden. This resulted in the appearance of the garden as a self-contained space, floating and separated from the rest of the world.

Many of the deciduous trees were already bare, although some still had a few autumn coloured leaves.

 

In this photo the garden seems to end in the wall of grey beyond the boundary trees.

My attention at one moment was caught by the watery sunlight catching the dew drops on this spiders web. Marcia pointed out earlier that some of the leaves were actually rimed with ice and then told me that the temperature had got down to minus two degrees celsius overnight.

Some bright red pomegranates by the verandah were very appealing to my ikebana eyes, along with the branches that had quite thick growths of various lichens. I was granted permission to prune and create a large autumnal ikebana installation. 

My idea was to set it sufficiently high that the evening guests when seated around the coffee table would be able to see each other below the reaching branches.

When we arrived we were welcomed by this ikebana made by Marcia to which I later added the pomegranate at the back.

This is how my large ikebana looked photographed against a wall. The materials are lichen-encrusted branches, two branches of pomegranates and two white camellias that are among the mass in the centre of the arrangement.

Greetings from Christopher

23rd May 2021

FRUITING BRANCHES AND PAPER

A couple of weeks ago I had a walk in the Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne on a rather overcast day after it had been raining. The diffused light seemed to make the autumn colours more luminous, perhaps because the wet green leaves were darker looking.

This view is from a high vantage point that looks down to the main lake through some large deciduous trees.

Nearby, this richly coloured tree was like a beacon between the deep greens on either side. 

Along one of the paths I noticed that leaves, like this one, looked extra bright because the area around the veins remained yellow while the edge of the leaves had turned red.

There are only a few native Australian trees that are deciduous, most of which are tropical or subtropical. Apparently we have only one 'true temperate deciduous tree' the Tasmanian Beech Northofagus gunnii. This next link is fascinating and answered my question "How many native deciduous trees are there in Australia?". 

In the gardens I was delighted to see that this Firewheel Tree, Stenocarpus Sinatus, has come into flower. The bright red of the rather extraordinary flowers is really eye catching against the glossy dark green leaves.

The flowers had formed in fairly large clusters scattered over the tree.

This close-up makes sense of the common name, Fire Wheel.

Finally, my ramble took me down to the lake at the lowest part of the garden. I was delighted by this view of a small tree in autumnal splendour reflected on the lake surface. 

In a recent class with my teacher, Elizabeth, we were asked to make an ikebana using fruiting branches and incorporating paper. An interesting challenge. The important thing to keep in mind is that both the botanical and man-made elements must be integrated in the design and be necessary. That means there should be a sense of connectedness between the elements. Secondly, if either of the materials were removed the ikebana would look incomplete.

This is Elizabeth's demonstration example of the exercise. She had hand cut strips of magazine pages to create two masses of looping lines, then added a mass of green and orange cumquats. 

For my ikebana I collected three branches of figs that I had seen growing wild by the Yarra River in Melbourne and set them in a tall conical metal vessel. The fruit were very small, probably because of the poor quality of the soil. I removed almost all of the leaves. The remaining ones are mostly showing their undersides, which are interestingly textured and have pronounced veins. Then I rolled two sheets of red tissue paper around a bamboo skewer, creating two straight straw-like red lines.

The following morning the leaves had wilted badly, so I removed them. The result looked better to my eyes, being a less fussy design. One of the paper straws had softened at the bend, but I decided not to fiddle with it and risk making the bend even weaker.

Greetings from Christopher

15th May 2021

 

UNUSUAL AGAPANTHUS

Last week I began term two classes for my Geelong and Torquay students after a six week break, and life has become suddenly busy again with activities beyond those classes. Being busy is, of course, a good thing.

The usual venue for my Torquay students was not available for the first week and it was necessary to hold the class at my home. The theme for the class was a minor challenge for the students. I had advised  them to bring only three flowers and that they would arrange those flowers with other materials that they could choose from the garden. I had set out a number of tall vases and suibans* for the students to use, so they had the possibilities of those vessels in mind. We then walked around the garden so that they could see what was available (and what was off limits ! ). Their choices included various pieces of 'driftwood' and other dried materials scattered about. 

I had set up trestle tables, as the exercise did not include the students having to take into account the situation in which the ikebana was to be set. I began the class with a demonstration of a fixing technique, using a vertical fixture in a tall vase which two of the students used. 

Marion had bought three intense pink carnations from her garden which she set with some curving stems of Swan River Pea, Gastrolobium celsianum.

Coralie used New Zealand Mirror Bush, Coprosma repens, in a tall blue vase with three stems of Leucadendron, L. salignum.

 

Marta arranged her Bromeliad, B aechmea gamosepala in a circular suiban with Banksia integrifolia, and some 'driftwood' from the garden.

Róža arranged stems of Hakea laurina, with some 'driftwood' in a green suiban.

Judy arranged some Lisianthus, with some dried branches of Coast Tea Tree, Leptospermum laevigatum, in an ikebana vase by Graeme Wilkie.

During my regular walk last summer I noticed a very unusual Agapanthus flower in the garden of a holiday house. The flower stalk had five fused, curving stems, and one very large flower. On the plant there was another flower stalk with two fused stems. 

This close up shows clearly the five fused stems and, at the bottom, the stalk with two fused stems. A couple of weeks ago I met the owner of the house and asked permission to cut the plant to use in an ikebana arrangement.

 

The larger stem had developed a 'corkscrew' twist as well, so that it looks smaller at the bottom because at that point it is side-on. I have arranged the two stems in a moon-shaped ceramic ikebana vase and placed them parallel to each other so that there is narrow space between them. This unique material is so strong that it does not need anything else added to the work.

Greetings from Christopher

9th May 2021

* Suiban (Japanese) - shallow tray-like vessels.

HAKEA

 

On Monday last the Sogetsu Branch held a workshop on the theme of "Renka", a style of ikebana created by a group of participants and which is modelled on the tradition of improvised linked poetry called Renga. The ikebana style, Renka, was invented by Hiroshi Teshigahara the third Iemoto of the Sogetsu school. 

The modified process for the workshop was devised by Emerald Leung and Angeline Lo. In the workshop all participants made a first ikebana under a strict 15 minute time limit. They then made a second ikebana in response to another, randomly chosen, participant's first work. The process meant that each participant made two ikebana arrangements in the workshop. 

   

By way of demonstration, Emerald and Angeline created the examples below.

Emerald created the ikebana on the right and Angeline responded with the arrangement on the left.

   

Angeline then made the arrangement on the left and Emerald responded to it with the arrangement on the right. The following link will take you to the record of the meeting on the Sogetsu Branch website including photos of the ikebana.

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A couple of weeks ago I noticed my neighbour's Pincushion Hakea, H. laurina, was flowering prolifically this year. It is one of my favourite Australian flowers, which I remember from my primary school days because it grew in the school grounds. 

The flowers are quite extraordinary, being spherical with a deep pink centre from which protrude long, creamy white pistols. My childhood's eyes saw the flowers as looking like an exploding firework. The stiff greyish-green leaves tend to have a curve, often an attractive 'S' shape, and which holds well after cutting. The leaves are delightful for the sense of writhing movement they give. The flowers are frequently within the bush and are often at least partially obscured by the leaves.

This photo shows the initial placement of two branches that I secured in a vase using a vertical fixture, to prevent the branches from rotating. As you can see, the flowers are almost hidden among the leaves. Trimming was necessary...

...a lot of trimming in fact. All the leaves that were in front of flowers were removed first. Then I removed additional ones that had distracting lines. 

Next, the branches were re-positioned so that the flowers formed a mass. I then added three lines of Coast Sword Sedge, Lepidosperma gladiatum, which gave a flowing sense of movement complementing the leaves and the line on the vase. The two small yellow spheres are flowers that have not fully opened.

The vase is by the Victorian ceramic artist Kaye Poulton, who has a studio in Mooroopna.

Greetings from Christopher

2nd May 2021