I was wandering around my daughter’s garden with my youngest grandson. I spotted many wild grape vines in the wooded area. Immediately I thought to use it for ikebana. Also, I had a bucket full of flowers that I hand picked from the local “All You Can Pick” field for a small fee. The field had rows of many different types of flowers. 😊
 |
| I used my daughter’s dishes as a container （7/27/2022） |
 |
| This is the bucket of flowers from the “Pick Your Own” field. |
On July 24, 2022, we and my sisters’ family attended my nephew’s (my sister’s son) pre-wedding get together at “The Highlawn,” in West Orange, New Jersey. After the party, we headed to Rhinebeck, in upstate New York, to meet all my children and grandchildren. It was kind of like a family reunion (14 members total). We stayed for 5 days at my daughter, Melanie’s home. Vivian (my other older daughter from Baltimore) and I helped to take care of Melanie's two young boys, my grandsons. My son Geoffrey’s home is just 5 minutes away!
The surroundings around my daughter’s house have a lot of ikebana materials. See below: cabbage leaves from their vegetable garden, balloon flowers and Russian Sage from her front yard; the others were wild flowers.
 |
| Arranged on 7/26/2022 |
 |
| Queen Anne’s lace (wild carrot) in back |
It’s has been so steamy hot this week! This heat wave #3 has lasted about 10 days. I escaped the heat by just staying home doing my Ikebana. All the materials were easy to reach from my own garden. Keeping cool in the house!
Materials: Sword fern, daylily and Mardi gras helenium / ceramic Suiban
 |
| Helenium ‘Mardi gras’ |
There are some other summer flowers in my garden besides daylily. Here is an arrangement using hydrangea and stokes’ aster in a glass vase.
 |
| added zinnia and petunia |
I should say that my garden is for four seasons. Every season has its different flowers and scenery. It makes me long for each season to come. That’s why I feel like time flies by so quickly! All of sudden, it’s the middle of the summer already!
I was walking along our local park’s open field. I picked some interesting wild onion seed pods and other wild plants. Here’s my arrangement using them, plus home grown astilbe and feverfew with a self made basket over a black glass container.
Here’s the mock orange branches and the flowers of magnolia, daisy, and feverfew arranged in a big ceramic vase.
 |
| First day, everything was fresh |
 |
| Second day, magnolia and mock orange flowers blooming |
 |
| But the mock orange flowers faded |
(
