Ikebana: We Tried Out the Japanese Art of ‘Mindful’ Flower Arranging

As Londoners wholeheartedly embrace houseplants, you might be trying to keep alive forests of greenery. But what about flowers?

In our mindful age, flower arranging has finally come out of the shadows of the WI. It allows us to slow down and consider the fragrance, touch, colour and form of each stem as we design a vase of cut flowers. No more stuffing a bunch in a pot.

Having a go at ikebana, the practice of Japanese floral art, I felt I’d made something really lovely that I’d never done before, in a matter of minutes – and you can keep tweaking it until you’re happy. It’s a tradition that goes back 550 years, to the time when the Ikenobō school – the largest ikebana school – was founded in Kyoto.

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