Miniatures with Grasses.

Grass/es is a material that is very often used in Ikebana. I researched to see how prevalent this material is and to my amazement I discovered there are over 12,000 species! No doubt this is divided in many subgroups or lower classifications, which we may know quite a few. Two amazing examples of grass is Banana and Bamboo, which we or rather I do not think of as grass!

The grasses in my arrangement were discovered while gardening. First is Mondo grass, then Dandelion seed head, next is like a Paspalum with the start of the sticky flowers, and the other grass is similar a kind of Papyrus, all small and running rampant in my garden.

I chose to arrange the grasses in Miniature containers so the viewer can see the beauty of the forms and green tones. One challenge I had was to keep the Dandelion seed intact – while still on the plant I lightly sprayed it with hairspray then carefully picked it spraying it a little more. Once picked the stem deteriorates very quickly so it needs to be wired with very fine wire or used and photographed immediately for a photographic shoot.