I have been seeing a trend for wallhangings in competitions that require the design to be staged without a backing. This makes it a different challenge for the designer because you have to think about the mechanics of placing your plant material without being able to attach anything to a “backing” board.
For this design the choice of mechanics was made easier by the requirement for branches to be a part of the design. Added to that, gumnuts are generally found (and used) in the dried form so I would not necessarily need to place a water source in the design.
Rather than use the branches horizontally as this might be seen by a judge as a “backing”, I have made a frame of interconnected branches and twigs. This is done with glue and wire. It is purposely not straight to enhance the natural shapes of the branches.
Large gumnuts have been drilled to allow a wire to join them in a garland which is draped around the frame. It is also attached by wire for stability.
Further placements of smaller gumnuts still attached to branches are placed angling out from the frame with one fresh gumleaf branch.
This design placed third.
Judges comments – Good use of design skills for branch frame and gumnut garland. The frame is visually heavy so more placements are needed to fill the negative space within the frame. Nothing connects one side to the other across the gap.