It’s fall, it’s berry season! Winter berry bushes, crepe myrtle trees, nandina bushes are all having their beautiful berries in my garden right now. Also many bittersweet are popping up in the wild. They are good sources of the Ikebana materials for the fall season. (10/29/2023)
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| I just love this tall glass vase -- it's translucent when the sun shines |
Ikebana International Philadelphia Chapter's October program was taking a trip to “Grounds for Sculpture" located in Hamilton, New Jersey. Whoever signed up for the trip would meet at the entrance. It only took us 20 minutes to get there. We all had a private tour to explore the art and sculpture in the beautiful garden. If you wish to have lunch, there is a French restaurant situated next to Monet’s garden!
It’s a warm and beautiful autumn day for outing! There were so much to see and a lot of walking. My husband and I were just too tired to completely see the entire garden, so we would like to go again in the future. Here are just a few photos that I took for example for you to have some ideas. I like how the sculptures are placed in the right spot in this 42-acre grounds of sculpture park and museum. (10/26/2023)
Since my two persimmon trees have produced a lot of fruits this fall, I would like to make another arrangement “Fruiting Plant Materials” as a subject again.
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| Hydrangea, persimmon, mum, carnation, magnolia, bittersweet / ceramic container |
My teacher gave me two beautiful anthuriums after our October Class Lesson. Following that weekend, we visited our children’s family in Rhinebeck, NY. We especially loved to meet our baby grandson for the first time, who was already one month old! He smiled back at you too! So cute! He melted our hearts! (10/14/2023)
Because of the pink and red anthuriums, I went to my daughter-in law’s garden (only five minutes away from my daughter’s home) to pick some pink hydrangeas to bring home. Look! Here’s the arrangement:
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| Long lasting anthurium and fresh hydrangea (10/17/2023) |
Our persimmon trees are having a lot of fruits this fall, which are still hanging on the trees. In comparison, we harvested only one persimmon last year. In fact, you need two persimmon trees to bear fruit. So, we planted two young trees six years ago. It took four or five years to finally bear many persimmon fruits! I am really thrilled!
For the class lesson, the subject was “Fruiting Plant Materials." My persimmon branches came in handy just in time. Sensei was not only using my persimmon branches for demonstration, I also shared some of them for my classmates to use. For myself, I used four persimmon branches (5 persimmons) and a dried tree branch arranged in a heavy duty ceramic vase to hold securely in place, then added mums and pine to complete my arrangement. (10/10/2923)
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| Sensei’s demo |
Between classes, I always do some arrangements for my own pleasure. But for our October class lessons, Sensei assigned two basic style arrangements for us again. She likes to make sure that we do it right. Lesson (1): Basic Slanting Style Moribana - book 1-7, Lesson (2): Variation #1 Upright Style Moribana (10/10/2023)
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| Lesson 1: Dogwood and carnation |
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| Lesson 2: magnolia and mum |
Autumn is here and it’s harvest time! We have much more persimmon fruits and figs this year, compared to a couple years ago. The persimmons are still hanging on the tree, they grow bigger and bigger every day. Contrary to the figs, they are ripening several and ready to pick everyday and they are delicious!
A friend of mine gave me seven pieces of beautiful hosta leaves, two were very big. I put them in the bucket, thinking about how to make an arrangement with them?
A couple days later, they started turning yellow, it’s time to make an arrangement. I had been playing around with the hosta and sushi mat. It’s fun to see the final arrangement. (10/4/2023)
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| hosta, alstroemeria and sushi mat / ceramic container |
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| adding sushi mat into arrangement looked prettier |
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| different angle view |
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| changed alstroemerias to mum |
The flowering of Sweet Autumn Clematis vine is beautiful, after their tiny white flowers fade, their seed pods are very unique too! I can use both of them as Ikebana materials.
This time, I used less of sweet Autumn clematis vine seed pods for the same arrangements, just changed the different colors of chrysanthemum. (10/2/2023)
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| Rearranged with only mums and added azalea |
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| I made this arrangement earlier using purple mum and pink turtle head |
