THE LAST HYDRANGEA OF AUTUMN

In the garden this week:

Two of the Hydrangeas, which can only survive in pots in our garden, have developed a rather lovely autumn colouring. Both of these produce a fairly deep pink flower. 

The second type of hydrangea produces a larger pale pink flower with smaller petals. It is this second Hydrangea that produced the "Last Hydrangea of Autumn".

In my ikebana this week, I have re-used the Gymea Doryanthes palmeri leaves from the arrangement I showed last week. One of the leaves had started to colour, developing some olive-green towards the tip of the leaf. I angled that leaf forward and across the front of the vessel to show the colours more clearly. The floral focus is the "last hydrangea of autumn". Its large mass complements the mass created by folding the Gymea leaves into rectangular box shapes. 

The vertically-faceted sloping vessel was made by the Australian Capital Territory ceramicist Therese Rasanen; an active artist at Strathnairn Arts

Greetings from Christopher
27th April 2025 

RED PAPER

In late March, Laurie noticed a flower spike on the Dracaena fragrans in the conservatory.

When I came closer to investigate I was really surprised to see the spike. I had never never thought about the possibility of this variegated Dracaena flowering in the conservatory.  

A week later...

...the small spherical groups of flowers had opened.

I discovered the botanical name of the plant, Dracaena fragrans is most appropriate, as it refers to the sweet scent which became very apparent in the evening. I found that I started to notice the fragrance twelve or more metres away in the corridor that leads to the conservatory. The fragrance must be of the kind that has evolved to attract nocturnal pollinating insects. 

In my Melbourne class last week, I set the students the exercise of making an Ikebana on the curriculum exercise "Showing the lines at the base". The focus of this exercise is to draw attention to the way the stems rise strongly from the vessel without any side branches or leaves causing distraction.

Eugenia used "Lucky bamboo" which is actually Dracaena sanderiana (not a bamboo) and three stems of white Haemanthus, possibly H. pauculifolius. The stems are arranged in a shallow trough and placed so that the materials all face toward the centre of the arrangement.

Jacqueline used three Strelitzia reginae leaves, altering their appearance by removing sections between some secondary veins. Two are placed upright and the one on the left at an angle. Three Gerbera flowers, one all but completely hidden, are set at around half the height of the leaves. This placement ensures that the leaves are the principal subject of the ikebana.

Marisha used Chrysanthemum flowers only in three different colours. She has stripped the leaves from the lower parts of the stems so that they are emphasised.

Marcia used only, Dwarf Japanese anemone Eriocapitella hupehensis. She has set the stems in two groups to create a space in the centre of the ikebana. The upward movement draws the eye toward the four small open flowers.

My own ikebana is a re-working of my thwarted plans for the Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show. I was intending to participate as a member of Ikebana International Melbourne. Unfortunately I came down with Covid after my visit to Sydney and had to isolate at home. All of the arrangements were to feature the use of an Obi within the ikebana as a uniting feature. 

I was able to re-work the idea without the Obi for the Sogetsu School's Victorian Branch AGM on Monday two weeks ago. The theme we had set for members was to use their favourite material and/or vessel. I chose a large wood-fired ceramic vessel by Ian Jones as being representative of my passion for hand-made ceramics. My favourite material is the twisted branches of Moonah Melaleuca lanceolata, a very wind and salt-hardy tree, commonly found on the cliffs near our home. The vertical lines are three Gymea Doryanthes palmeri leaves. In the absence of suitable flowers I added a colour focus made with two masses of red tissue-paper.

Greetings from Christopher
19th April 2025

EXPERIMENTING WITH PAPYRUS

Two weeks ago I set my senior Melbourne students the fairly traditional exercise of making an ikebana using Autumn grasses, arranged in a basket.

 

Eugenia collected all the materials from her garden, which has quite a number of Australian native species. However, her ikebana also has exotics including variegated New Zealand Flax Phormium.

Jacqueline collected her materials from the wayside. The grass with the plume-like flowers on the right looks like Fountain grass Cenchrus setaceus, a native of Africa, the Middle East and South-western Asia. Her 'basket' is woven from Pandanus leaves and can sit flat, or the edges can be lifted and held by toggles at the corners.

In the garden, the Haemanthus coccineus recently produced five flowers. I decided I could afford to pick three. I justified this to myself as it would encourage the relatively young plants to put more energy into root and leaf development instead of making seeds.

I placed three flowers in a black ceramic vessel from Seto, in Japan, which looks to me rather like a strange cast-iron cooking pot. The flowers needed some green materials, so I used two Papyrus flower heads. 

Earlier in the year I had transplanted the Papyrus into a small 90cm diameter garden pond in the conservatory. By the early summer the tallest stems were 3.5m long, touching the ceiling glass. Two of the stems had bent and collapsed, so I used them in my ikebana. 

This was the first version of the ikebana. I had to tie up the rays (the fine filaments) at the top of the smaller stem on the  left because they hid the flowers completely. Having done that, the papyrus stems looked too different to each other.

I then loosely tied the rays on the taller stem to create a more coherent appearance in the arrangement. Standing back, I felt the idea of using the Papyrus made an "interesting" experiment but not a successful ikebana. 

Since then I made another ikebana arrangement where I was happy to let the rays of a drying Papyrus flowerhead cascade over other elements.

This is my third version using a Papyrus flowerhead in this way. I made the arrangement for an Ikebana International Melbourne workshop last Saturday. The workshop theme was "Using roses in ikebana". I find hot-house grown roses a very difficult material because of the stiffness of the stems and the weakness of the leaves. In the ikebana above I used roses bought from a florist with which I created a mass in the centre. The fine rays of Papyrus cascade over the three pale pink roses. The dried parts in the centre of the Papyrus closely matched the soft pink of the roses. I placed a dried, sun-bleached branch of Moonah Melaleuca lanceolata curling around the vessel and extending to the left. The roses have become a small colour focus that contrasts with the strong line of the dried branch.

The vessel is by the Victorian ceramicist Terunobu Hirata.

Greetings from Christopher
12th April 2025

 

GOLDEN ROD (The Canadian weed)

In my Melbourne class recently ...

...my student Chen has advanced from Moribana ikebana arrangements in a Suiban (shallow vessel) to the next stage in the Sogetsu curriculum. That is, arranging materials in a tall straight-sided vessel. This requires the mastering of fixing techniques so that the materials remain in place and at the correct angles for the particular exercise. In the photo above he has used only one kind of material, Crepe myrtle Lagerstroemia. Technically, the flowers should be a different kind of material to the branch lines at this stage.

The exercise I set for the advanced students was to make an ikebana using "summer flowers and unconventional (artificial) material". 

Jacqueline arranged three Sunflowers Helianthus, and  two Camellia branches so that they protruded from a picture frame.

Marisha arranged Eucalyptus branches and Alstroemeria flowers in a shallow boat-shaped vessel. The "unconventional" material she used was white mizuhiki *.

Eugenia, arranged a single, cerise Dahlia flower in a flat-fronted vessel. The unconventional material is a wide ribbon of thick, malleable metal that has been painted black.

In the garden at Torquay I have been growing Golden Rod Solidago canadensis, in an old concrete laundry trough. 

 

This year I started watering it with a full bucket of water on most days. It has survived the few very hot days and grown shoulder high, as the above photo shows. Interestingly, when I was in Japan in November 2023 I saw that it had indeed become a significant environmental weed; true to my Canadian ikebana friend Leonora's description of it as 'the Canadian weed'. As a result I am taking care to remove dead flowers before they set seed.

I made this ikebana to express the strong upward movement of the Golden Rod. A mass of pink Bella Donna flowers anchors the vertical line and connects it to the vase made by Mark Bell from Maine USA.

Greetings from Christopher

6th April 2025 

* Mizuhiki are strings made from rolled Japanese Washi paper