THE MODERN MINT BLOG
How do you grow Cassia in the UK? You have to make it up as you go along….
We have found a lovely, short interview about growing the botanicals for Bombay Sapphire Gin in 2 glasshouses in Hampshire (near where we learnt to garden just outside Basingstoke!)
According to the gardener Chris Cottrell, who runs the glasshouses at Laverstoke Mill, the only other place in the country that is growing cassia is Kew, so when it starts to look unhealthy there are not a lot of places to turn for advice.
It is the bark of the cassia tree that is used to flavour Bombay Sapphire Gin.
Read the article here.
Grab a bottle of Bombay Sapphire here.
Or discover more about UK Gin, the artisans that make it and the range of botanicals used in one of our most popular blog posts at Modern Mint – Best Gin 2017 – The Most Useful Guide To UK Gin.
EBTS Boxwood Growers Forum
Through the European Boxwood and Topiary Society I worked with Chris Poole and Sue Mesher, members of the EBTS board, and we set up a Boxwood Growers Forum. This was to discuss how to make sure this wonderful topiary plant stays in the public conscioussness – we know many growers, suppliers and distributors have stopped selling it as the cost of replacing boxwood that has blight, or is nibbled by the boxwood caterpillar, makes it unviable to offer to clients and gardeners. But Boxwood is a phoenix plant, and there are ways to deal with the problems associated with Buxus. …
Modern Topiarist @ Garden Masterclass Poland
My video on Modern Topiary for Garden Masterclass has been translated into Polish, for the keen gardeners (and happy pruners!) of Garedn Masterclass in Poland. Tickets for the first showing and q and a were available here. But it will become available on the Garden Masterclass Poland website at some point in the near future – so if you are a keen clipper and want to know more, but speak Polish and not English, then I suggest you visit the website and get watching. (Of course, if you don’t speak English, you may not be able to read this…. hmmm… …
Topiary Hotline
The European Boxwood & Topiary Society are to run a Topiary Hotline for keen gardeners and people who love to clip. Date is tomorrow, April 16th 2024, and you can get a ticket for the Zoom meeting here – Topiary Hotline. Run by Chris Poole and myself, we set this up as an antidote to the huge amount of questions we have to answer about topiary throughout the summer. The plus is that their is an excitement around topiary and pruning. The problem is we need to help people in a better way… … so we will be giving people …