Late Summer

Late January in Queensland is intensely hot, when gardens begin to look tired and many of the flowers we associate with beauty have already passed. I bought the unopened Lisianthus buds from my local florist and gathered the rest from the roadside, drawn to the way each one felt: smooth petals, the soft puff of that seed head, flowering grass like velvet, and waxy clusters of fruit. Together, they carried the tenderness of a season after its peak — that moment when something seems almost finished, yet still holds more beauty than we expected.

I arranged the flora in a glass vase so the afternoon light could pass through it, illuminating the stems as well as the flowers above. Then I formed a perfect circle from wire and placed it among them, visible inside the vase. Its open shape became a pause within the arrangement — a little more air, a little more room to breathe.