Melbourne Chapter #29

The Saturday afternoon workshop open to the public on June 25th was led by senior Sogetsu School teacher, Lara Telford (https://ikebanasogetsu.com/). Lara chose the theme of using the iconic Australian native plant Eucalyptus as the principal material at the workshop. She told the members and guests that the Eucalyptus genus includes a diverse range of plants, from the world’s tallest flowering trees, to shrubs and mallees, and can be found across most of the Australian continent. Because of the very familiarity of these plants ikebanists often overlook them, instead favouring northern hemisphere exotics. Lara encouraged members to use branches, flowers, seedpods, bark and/or leaves of these plants in our ikebana.

Lara began the meeting presenting one completed ikebana in a vessel she had made herself. In this example Lara used three different kinds of eucalyptus, showing leaves, flowers and seed pods. She had also added Banksia Coccinea for its bright red flowers.
She also demonstrated a simple arrangement in a tall glass vase using dried seed pods of Eucalyptus macrocarpa and pendulous leaves of another Eucalyptus. The small red focal point is Nandina domestica.