NANDINA BERRIES

We are now officially in winter and the last week has certainly felt like it. This was especially the case on those couple of nights when the temperature came down to 3 degrees Centigrade. Also in the last week the "High Country" in the mountains on the east side of Victoria had their first snow falls for the year. I was particularly relieved that we did not get the predicted frost a few nights ago.

Today the morning was lovely, with bright sunshine. What a privilege to look out at this scene from our bathroom window. Although, I must admit that the sunshine was rather intermittent for the rest of the day.

At the end of autumn and beginning of winter, our garden has some fresh new growth. This above, was unexpected. Last year I savagely pruned the Cootamundra Wattle, Acacia baileyana, that grows by the garden path after it had flowered. I removed all the main branches and every last leaf. A few years ago I had discovered that it has been infested by the larvae of a moth which burrows down into the wood, progressively weakening the plant. I am afraid this growth, which looks so lovely, will have to be removed because the, now quite old tree will not survive the larvae infestation.

Elsewhere in the garden this Hairpin Banksia, Banksia Spinulosa, has produced a number of flowers. This tall straight flower, technically an inflorescence, (it is made up of a cluster of smaller flowers on a stem) is not yet fully open.

However on this one the "styles", which curve back into the flower, have fully opened, developing the characteristic hook that gives the plant its common name.

  

Nearby one of the Correas we planted two years ago has grown well and now has many of its dainty autumn flowers.

In the Torquay classroom in recent weeks the students were shown how to make small sculptural structures with chopsticks that can then be used in conjunction with their ikebana. These small sculptures are a quite versatile design element that can be used to create an unexpected contrast within the ikebana. It is important that such manmade "unconventional materials" are an integrated design element and not merely an added decoration to the finished ikebana.

Judy had painted her sculpture black, and set it in a tall white vase with a leaf-like fluted edge. The black provides a strong contrast to two yellow Asiatic lilies.

Coralie's structure was left unpainted which picked up the straw colour of the spathes on her bamboo from which some leaves had been removed. She also added a single stem of Cyperus Papyrus and some red Nandina domestica 'nana' leaves as a contrast.

Róża also left the sculpture unpainted. She has placed it around and above a strong red cylindrical vase. This placement allows the structure to also perform a supporting function for the botanical material, Pincushion Hakea, H. laurina.

At a subsequent class of my Torquay students the exercise I set was to make an ikebana using two vessels. Additionally the students were then to make a design of repeated shapes using their plant material. I had encouraged the students to use leaf material for the exercise.

  

Marta, has used a single Monstera leaf which she split into two halves, placing each half into seperate vessels, unfortunately a bit difficult to see in this photo. She also created curving and looping lines with variegated New Zealand Flax.

Coralie, used three Gymea Lily, Doryanthes, leaves which she formed into angular shapes. These are contrasted with Dietes leaves that have been manipulated into curving lines.

Róża, made her design of triangles and angular lines with Umbrella grass, Cyperus alternifolius. The pattern made with manipulated stems is contrasted with a single rosette of leaves left in its natural state.

At a recent class my student Maureen offered me a large bunch of Nandina berries which I happily accepted. We have this Nandina is growing in our garden. However, it grows slowly in the sandy soil and has only produced tiny berries on a couple of occasions. Maureen's bunches of berries were very healthy and a wonderful bright red. So cheerful in the wintery weather.

I have set the Nandina berries with a fading autumnal Hydrangea flower and two Coastal Sword Sedge, Lepidosperma gladiatum, leaves. The large black lacquered vessel is by Hiroyasu Takizawa. I chose this vessel because of its dark colour which contrasts well with the principal subject, the red berries. The equally strong form of the vessel is very dominating. So I have massed the botanical materials and kept them low, their height being less than half that of the vessel.

 

Greetings from Christopher

5th June, 2022

LARGE and SMALL IKEBANA (amended)

 

In the garden about two weeks ago, I was surprised and delighted to see this Bromeliad flower. 

I had been given small Bromeliad plants by my friend Shirley and my sister-in-law, Helen. Having placed several plants in the same section of the garden I am not completely sure  to whom I should attribute this flower. But my thanks go to both gardening friends. Although small, this inflorescence is spectacular with its bright pink and the blue tips that precede the opening of the flower. I have learnt that this an Aechea, a member of the Bromeliad family, from Venezuela and some of the Caribbean islands.

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In the class room for my Melbourne students, I had set a couple of exercises. Given the time of year, an Autumn Ikebana was a timely subject.

I always associate Autumn with leaves that change their colours with this season. This is a curious part of my cultural heritage given that much of my childhood reading was of stories set in the UK and Europe. Autumn leaves are not a phenomenon of  Australian native trees and they were conspicuously absent in the coastal environment of Torquay in my childhood. That aside, in Japan, with its distinct seasons, there are particular flowers, berries and colouring of leaves that signal autumn. 

Eugenia made her arrangement harmonise with the warm tones of her wooden nageire vessel; bare branches, dwarf Nandina domestica, and rust-red Chrysanthemums.

In a modern orange-red ikebana vessel, Margaret set a stem of Nandina domestica, carefully pruned, with a cluster of berries and a single flower of Camelia, Kamo-honnami  *  .

Marcia set red Siberian Dogwood, Cornus alba, stems of rose-hips, fading Sedum flowers and Crepe Myrtle, Lagerstromia. leaves

Marisha's exercise from the curriculum was to "Disassemble and re-arrange" her materials. She created this bold design using stems, leaves, buds and an open Lilium flower. 

Recently I was unexpectedly given some very heavy fruit- covered inflorescence stems by our neighbour, Polly. They were presented along with the confident assertion: "You could do something with these". I suppose it was equally a challenge and so it turned out to be. These stems, from a Kentia Palm Howea forsteriana, or possibly Howea belmoreana, were exceptionally heavy and I found I could only arrange them as they grew. And here is my justification for having a variety of vessels for ikebana. 

The large black vessel is by the Victorian ceramic artist Alistair Whyte. It had both the visual and physical mass to support the weight of the stem. I made a mass with short sections of the material in the mouth of the vessel and positioned a single long stem that ended in a point which allowed it to lightly touch the table surface and thus avoided looking heavy or worse, collapsing.

I made my final, rather small, ikebana using two of the variegated leaves of the Aechmea and the single flowering inflorescence from the garden. Here again is evidence of the value of having at least a small but varied range of vases for your ikebana practice.

Greetings from Christopher

29th May 2022

 

* Hon'ami, Kōetsu (further information. The person after whom this camellia is named)

SCULPTURAL FORMS USING WOOD

This Saturday morning had the best of autumn weather, bright sunshine and no wind. It was a cool nine degrees Celsius at 8.00 am, but had warmed somewhat when we had a walk on the beach after a late breakfast. The tide was especially low, so we walked out onto the exposed reef. This way we can look at the waves about 80 metres from the shore without getting our feet wet! We also were able to look into some small rock pools. 

 

This one had a large collection of mostly broken shells with a variety of colour and form.

In the next pool I came across I was delighted to see a rather large sea urchin with characteristic red spines.

The pale purple stripes are masses of tiny pedicellaria it uses to move and to transfer food to its "mouth"

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On Thursday at class in Geelong I had set the students some homework. They were given 20 sets of disposable chopsticks,(hashi in Japanese), with which they were to make a small, irregular, sculptural form by wiring them together. If they wished they could paint the sculpture or leave it in a raw state. At the class, their exercise was to then use the small sculptures as a design element in their freestyle ikebana.

Helen Q had painted her sculpture lime green, (chartreuse, I was advised). Helen had set some variegated Aloe leaves strongly reaching to the left rear from a black suiban. She placed her sculpture within the suiban but spilling forward to the right front.

Christine painted her sculpture a bright blue to pick up the blue tips on the Bromeliad flower, from her garden. At the front is a small mass of blue Salvia flowers.

  

Maureen chose to leave her sculpture unpainted and found that it went well with a bleached branch of Mitsumata, Edgeworthia chrysantha. Some Nandina berries provide a contrasting focal point and the fine green line with leaves in the space on the left side, balances the sculptural mass on the right.

Helen M chose a black vase for her sculpture which she contrasted with some Dutch iris, Iris x hollandica and yellow Chrysanthemum.

Tess also painted her sculpture black and used it with contrasting black and white bottle-shaped vases. Her fresh material of Geranium was placed on the opposite side of the ikebana.

Jo painted her sculpture a rich yellow and set it to the left side of her brown-glazed vase. A single flower of Banksia ericifolia is supported within the structure, which is balanced by the green line of the Banksia stem on the right side.

Jo also made a second ikebana using the twig structure that she had made in the previous week. Here its lightness is balanced by the mass of a single Hydrangea.

Ellie made this ikebana using her pale-green painted sculpture. Her fresh material was green Queen Anne's Lace, Daucus carota, and Nandina domestica (dwarf form).

In a second ikebana Ellie created this work in a suiban. In this instance the sculpture is both a design element and the support structure for the fresh material, pink Chrysanthemums.

She used hashi that had not been separated into two parts. With the tension between the two parts of the still joined hashi they were enabled to grip other unseparated hashi. I found it an interesting and novel idea.

My own ikebana this week is a much larger sculptural structure. It was made for the exhibition "A moment in time", held in the 

All Nations Foyer at the Box Hill Town Hall, organised and curated by Emily Karanikolopoulos. The venue had three tall and narrow glass display cases, one of which I was to use. This protected environment enabled me to use a special ceramic ikebana vessel by Nakamura Yutaka that has fairly thin walls. 

Of necessity, the structure had to be a vertical form and I have used birchwood branches, dowelled together. To emphasise the form I placed some of the thicker pieces high in the structure in such a way that they are suspended above the space beneath them. The contrasting material is dwarf Nandina domestica and three stems of Coastal Sword Sedge, Lepidosperma gladiatum.

Greetings from Christopher

21st May 2022
 

BERRIES and a CAMELLIA

Two weeks ago the senior students at my Melbourne class had been set the exercise to make an ikebana with "colours in closely related tones". At this time of year the students found a broader range of materials than the flowers that are often used as the main subject in this exercise.

Eugenia used American Beauty berry, Callicarpa americana, Prairie Gentian, Eustoma russellianum, New Zealand flax and some other grasses in a modern black ceramic vessel. 

Marcia used Pieris, Abelia, and three stems of unidentified material on the right side in this tall black ceramic vase.

In my Geelong class...

...Jo's exercise was to make a simplified ikebana. This means stripping the material to a minimum without loosing its essence. She used three Tulips from which she removed all but one leaf and some petals, making the stamens visible, and set them in a black suiban. The branch structure made with fine Birch stems allowed the flowers to be stand without using a kenzan.

The advanced students' exercise was to make an ikebana focussing on berries.

Ellie used "Snow berries", Gaultheria hispida, a plant endemic to the island state of Tasmania. The small pink flower on the right rear is Pieris. The blue ceramic vase has the appearance of three joined cylinders.

Helen Q used branches of Cotoneaster frigidus berries, stripped of their leaves. She contrasted them with dark Ivy, Hedera, berries. The cylindrical vase is by the ceramic artist Graeme Wilkie.

In her first ikebana Christine massed Cotoneaster berries in a dry glass cylinder. She then placed this cylinder inside another to which she added water. The water level was set to the top of the mass. She pointed out if she had simply added water to a vase full of berries they would have flowed over the top.

In her second ikebana Christine set stems of Nandina berries with a branch of Manchurian pear, Pyrus ussuriensis in a modern, footed, ceramic ikebana vase. 

Helen M inverted a stem of Cotoneaster berries which she set in a square-section glass vase. To keep them in place she made a hana kubari, that is, a flower-fixing device made from botanical materials that becomes part of the design. In this case it is made from a stripped stem of Cottoneaster.

Helen M also made this simple ikebana using a stem of Eucalyptus, a bunch of Pittosporum undulatum berries, with a single leaf left on the Pittosporum branch.

Tess also used a tall stem of Cotoneaster frigidus, which she used to create an elegant line, and some masses of Pittosporum in a contemporary ceramic ikebana vessel.

On Tuesday last week I attended the monthly meeting of Ikebana International Melbourne. The guest speaker was Judy Hajdu, one of the Chapter members. Judy presented a slideshow about Gardens in Iran, which she toured in 2017. 

I wanted to reference Iran with my ikebana at the meeting, so I used some objects I had at home that came from Iran. I bought the two hand-blown goblets some years ago. The small inlaid box, in which I keep potpourri, was the gift of an Iranian friend. A single camellia flower with some buds on the long stem reference the garden theme. It is split onto a cross-bar at the level of the water surface to support the stem and prevent it from rotating. 

This link is to the Ikebana International Melbourne Chapter meeting.

Greetings from Christopher
14th May 2022

AUTUMN MASSES

It is not officially winter until next month here. However, on the coast in the last week the temperatures have dropped. What has really made it feel wintery is the wind-chill that has made it necessary for me to rug up.

Grey skies and strong wind from the south do produce a wintery feel. 

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The exercise I set for my senior students last week was to make an ikebana incorporating fruiting branches with some "unconventional material" (artificial material).

Maureen's principal material was a single Agave , with Leucadendron and, for the fruiting branch, Lemon, Citrus limon. Her "unconventional material" was spiralling wire.

Christine also used Lemon for her fruiting branch. Her "unconventional material" was from a loose weave synthetic bag.

 

Ellie used painted wire mesh for her "unconventional material", with red dwarf Nandina domestica leaves and a branch with two Pomegranates, Punica granatum. 

Maree's exercise was from the Book 3/4 curriculum, 'a composition of curved lines'. She used eucalyptus stems that were bent and arched across a suiban with two contrasting lines of Heliconia, psittacorum. This is also an example of an ikebana in a suiban without a kenzan. 

Follow through this link to see some photos of the exhibition organised by Emily Karanikolopoulos, which finished yesterday after its second week.

Last week I attended Elizabeth's class for which the exercise was an autumn ikebana.

A neighbour had just given me a bag of beautiful bright orange Persimmons, Diospyros kaki. Although they were not on a branch I decided I could use them in a non-naturalistic ikebana. I used bamboo skewers to secure a small mass of them at the mouth of this black vase to which I added a second mass of gathered Liquidambar, Liquidambar styraciflua, leaves. Then I placed two stems of Miscanthus seed heads from the garden at an angle giving the ikebana a different texture and additional height.

Greetings from Christopher

8th May 2022