SMALL WINTER IKEBANA ARRANGEMENTS

As an Ikebana practitioner I have a particular appreciation of the conditions in winter where I live. The climate of the southern coastline of mainland Australia is 'Mediterranean'. That means hot dry summers and cold wet winters. It means there is still plenty of green to be seen during winter. This is particularly because Australia is blessed with native evergreen trees being the rule, rather than the exception. 

Here is an interesting example in this photograph I took in the Royal Botanical Gardens Melbourne this morning. In the foreground, deciduous trees from China and North Asia in their autumn colour, while in the background are Australian evergreen eucalyptus trees. 

To ikebana.

On Saturday, Ikebana international Melbourne Chapter held a workshop which I was unable to attend. The guest presenter's topic was 'The Way of Tea'. It reminded me of some ikebana that I had seen in 2023 when I participated in an 'Art, Architecture and History Tour' in Japan. 

The following two photos are of some ikebana I saw arranged in a traditional tokonoma, the display alcove of a traditional formal Japanese room.

This ikebana was in a National Trust of Japan property in Tokyo, built for Mr Yoshisaburo Fujita.

I photographed this small ikebana in a hanging vase in one of the houses in the Samurai district in Kanazawa.

I was prompted to make this very simple ikebana arrangement.  I have used two leaves of an unidentified ground lily (I think) and a small sprig of Brushfields yellow Camellia with an opening bud. I have discovered that I have not catalogued the vase and will have to go back to my paper records.

To make today's ikebana ...

...I gathered a single small branch of Manchurian pear Pyrus ussuriensis, from the garden of our apartment, with which I created a late-autumn, early-winter ikebana arrangement. The Manchurian pear is growing in a very sheltered position. So it still has quite a lot of green leaves, despite it being early July. I gathered the spent seedheads of some Dietes for their slightly nutty brown colour, and also the feeling of late autumn that they provide. The bottle-shaped vase is by Jamie Beeston.

Greetings from Christopher

6th June 2025