THE MODERN MINT BLOG
Clippings
That’s right, late spring is the time for clipping and pruning those box hedges, balls, cones and other weird and wonderful shapes you have in your garden. So here is a small selection of photos from our work this year…
… we have written before about topiary, so please do delve deeper into our blog to discover more about what the heck it is we are trying to achieve when we get out the shears and secateurs, and why creating a piece of ‘live sculpture’ in your garden may well be the best thing you could do this year…
Jake Hobson and Creative Pruning
Talking of secateurs, the sharpest, shiniest and best value on the market are these ones from Okatsune…
And for those of you living in Essex and London, who perhaps have an old hedge or plant that needs renovating, you can always ask us about our Organic Topiary service.
It could be the best and cheapest way to deal with that overgrown established shrub in your garden!
Happy clippings folks!
10 Years Of Modern Mint
On Valentine’s day this year (2024) Modern Mint, the company I started when I moved to Essex to explore a fresh, contemporary approach to gardening, will be 10 years old. The cliche is time flies… but it does! So much has happened in a decade, from studying topiary with Charlotte Molesworth, to clipping all over the UK (and eventually in the USA and Sweden) to selling shears and secateurs at garden shows and hiding away my reticence to give talks about gardening and topiary to Horticultural Societies across the UK. Ten years feels a good time to mark a new …
Garden Masterclass Trailer – The Modern Topiarist
In 2022 I did a free video for Garden Masterclass, the Annie Guilfoyle and Noel Kingsley run website that is a treasure trove of the great and good of the horticultural world – well worth looking through all the wonderful talks they have available, like meadow-maker James Hitchmough or nurserywoman Rosy Hardy. They are certainly inspirational! Perfect for watching and dreaming up new ideas during the winter months… As a follow-up to my Topiary Provocations video (which you can see on Youtube for free) I was asked to do a video for their Masterclass series on how to make topiary. …
Charlotte Molesworth’s Garden In The FT
The lovely garden of my mentor Charlotte Molesworth is featured here in the Financial Times in the last week or so… She has been interviewed lots of times but I thought this was a particularly great piece, with some photos done at unusual angles and different parts… so well worth a read. For more on topiary by Charlotte Molesworth…