Reflective Design "Hearts Delight"

The materials are spray painted Hosta, Nandina and pine corn, carnation, bittersweet.

I didn't have ikebana class last week due to the winter blizzard, but we had our M.W. garden club meeting yesterday. The little show's subject for this month is a reflective design"Hearts Delight". Reflective materials must be integral to the overall design. You may use shiny metal, plastic, paper, etc. For my design, the judge said my vase is overpowering. So I changed the smaller vase and rearranged it after I came home. Does it look better?

Indoor Orchid Garden

Right now, these are all my blooming orchids. I have more orchids blooming in winter than any other time. I gathered them all to make an indoor garden. As you can see I have many species here. Some are long lasting, some are going to fade soon. In my home I always have blooming orchids year round. Passing by the foyer you can smell a very pleasant perfume in the air.


Left is Oncidium Sherry baby (first place), it smells like chocolate, everybody loves it. Center is small sized Cattleya, its first time bloom, name unknown. Right is a Cymbidium, also no name. I am going to bring five plants to the B.C.O. S. meeting for show and competition tomorrow.

Cattleyas

Carefully look at these two pictures, do you see any difference? In fact they are two species. The first one is Bllra Tohoma Glacier "Ithan," the second is Lc. Hallo Wedding "Carmen"(it got first place). The difference is the white edge on the lip and the length of the sepals.
Blc. Hawaiian Lightning "Colorful"(2nd place)
Happiness is finding a new sheath. Bliss is finding a new bloom! Five months ago, I posted a picture of this orchid's sheath. Now it's in full bloom. Isn't it colorful? That's because this cattleya is very unique, the petals have two colors. Most are only one color. Five months is a long time to wait. All three cattleyas have a very pleasant perfume.

Cymbidiums

Name unknown. My friend gave me this orchid ten years ago. This Cym. has been divided many times and given away to many of my friends.(1st place at January's show table)

Cym. "Ivy Fan"

Cym." Lovely smile"(2nd place)
It's time to show my blooming Cymbidiums, most of them bloom in Winter time.They are long lasting orchids, about 2 months or more. Please check my blog (posted July 2009 Cymbidium orchids).

Winter Wonderland 2

The most historic winter blizzard since 1884 in the northeast region. 44 inches in one week!

Within one week the Philadelphia area was hit by two winter blizzards. This time is bigger than the last one. I have never seen this amount of snow in my 40 years of living in this country. The total accumulation is over two feet this time. It's breathtakingly beautiful! (2/10/10)

Winter Wonderland 1

Winter blizzard (2/6/10) in my back yard, over one foot snow. But my daughter's Baltimore home got more than two feet. The four pictures below were from my daughter's home surroundings (2/3/10) when they had two inches snow. Then, we just had a trace on the ground here.

"Showing lines at the base"(right picture) is mother nature's ikebana arrangement.

A beautiful cardinal is Mother Nature's ikebana composition "colors in contrast".

I was absent on February 2nd's ikebana class because my daughter had an important engagement, so I had to go to Baltimore to take care of my granddaughter for a few days. Since I didn't have any flower arrangements to post, why not catch some snapshots of this snow scene. It is so beautiful!