d stems, often in less than a single growing season. Unexpected and delicious scents often waft from herbal arrangements. I’ve also found that herbs tend to last longer in the vase than traditional cut flowers. Sometimes my ikebana herbs sprout roots, allowing me to take them from vase back to garden, where they can continue to grow and be enjoyed.
Herbal ikebana is about form, rhythm, and a sense of season. Most Americans are so far from “the good earth” and an appreciation of natural, local seasons that we suffer no sense of discontinuity when grocery stores are packed with watermelons in April. One of the goals of herbal ikebana is to center us in the now, in the present time, and in the season.
Go outside and look at what is flourishing in your garden at this very moment. Take the time to see the herbs that are so useful in the kitchen and medicine cabinet as objects of balance and artistry. Gather them serenely, and let their spare beauty bring calmness and focus to your life.
Rules of ikebana
Ikebana arrangements contain three main branches. The longest branch stands for heaven or spiritual truth; the middle, for man, or the harmonizer; and the shortest, for earth or material substance. The Japanese names for the branches vary from school to school, but here I’ll call them shin, soe, and hikae. Supporting accents, called jushi, are used in uneven numbers to emphasize the three primary lines.
The length of the shin should be one to two times the combined length and depth of the container. The soe is three-quarters the length of the shin, and the hikae, three-quarters that of the soe. The jushi are never longer than the branch that they echo. To signify spring, cut the branches a little shorter than the length given above; for summer, cut them a bit longer.
Imagine a centerline extending upward from the container. The tip of the shin should lie about 10 degrees off the centerline, that of the soe, about 45 degrees, and that of the hikae, about 75 degrees. Because arrangements are three-dimensional, the angles may occur in any direction.
An arrangement may be upright or may slant. Slanted arrangements are named from the perspective of the Buddha statue; thus, if the shin and soe are positioned to the right of the centerline with the hikae to the left, the result is called a left-handed arrangement. If the shin and soe are to the left of the centerline with the hikae to the right, the result is a right-handed arrangement. In either case, the angles remain in the same relative positions around a slanting centerline.
The container for an ikebana arrangement sets the overall style and designates the season as well. Pottery is common, but in summer baskets are often used. Metal containers are used only in winter to remind the viewer of ice and the reflection of light on snow.
That said, the container must not detract from the arrangement. The container also dictates whether the flowers will be held in the arrangement by the traditional split twigs, the flat, disk-shaped, spike-covered holder known as a kensan, or the thoroughly untraditional (but very convenient) floral foam. The kensan has a significant advantage over floral foam. Stems can be impaled on its spikes, removed, and re-impaled numerous times, allowing for fine adjustments in positioning. Once a depression or hole is made in floral foam, it’s there to stay. This limits your ability to move a branch of rosemary just the tiniest hair to the left, for example.
The most accessible styles of ikebana to Westerners are probably the modern, naturalistic moribana (“heaped-up flowers”) and the casual nageire (“thrown or tossed into”).
Moribana is much like lush Occidental flower arrangements. Containers range from a shallow bowl, compote, or widemouthed trough vase to those made of natural materials such as rock or driftwood. The plant material, held by a lead kensan, may be anything you choose. The fall arrangement in the image gallery is in the moribana style.
The vase for an arrangement in the nageire style should be tall with a narrow opening. The three lines of thi