My Ikebana: Taking Care Of Weeds

Added on by the ikebana shop.

The Japanese Knotweed (fallopia japonica) -- this plant is considered a weed and very invasive.  There's a lot of them growing in our parking area so I decided to help myself with some!

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Though not at really related to the bamboo, its stems are also hollow and has raised nodes.  I stripped the branches of their leaves and focused on this interesting characteristic of the stems for this arrangement.

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For my container, I took two crystal glass candleholders and put one on top of the other.

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I played around with straight lines and circles.  I lined up the stems horizontally against the vertical grooves of the crystal.  The hollow circular cross-section of the stems added round elements into the arrangement.

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The orange berries, apart from complementing the circular stem cross-sections, added some colour as well!

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And finally, a clump of mini hydrangeas to strengthen the mass.

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Here is the whole arrangement.

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Another view from the side. 

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It was quite fun for me to be able to use weeds for an arrangement.  Normally, they would've just been cut down and discarded!

I hope you like it.  --Miyako

(All photos by the ikebana shop.  All rights reserved.)