THE MODERN MINT BLOG
Seedballs
Here at Modern Mint we have now opened our webshop.
What has the distinction of being our first ever product for sale?
Seedballs!
What are Seedballs? They are a little ball of clay and compost. This little ball then creates perfect conditions for the seeds that are also in the ball of clay to germinate. It is a permaculture technique that we first read about in this book…
… we no longer have a copy as we gave ours to a Parisian theatre director about 5 years ago, in the hope they would turn it into a show. That has not happened (yet?) but the philosophies in the book still linger in our minds – to work with nature, not against – and so reduce the amount of work necessary to grow crops and other plants.
A little chilli powder is also in with the seeds, to stop the birds eating them before they have time to germinate.
When you get your tin and open it up, don’t plant the balls – just scatter them onto bare soil, or into pots. Water them (or, if you are being frugal with water, just let the rain do the work for you) and before long they will have germinated and be on their way. Just like in this Essex garden.
Brilliant idea as a gift, or as an easy way to get children interested in nature and the outdoors. Different tins have different plants, the current bestseller is the Bee Mix but that iconic flower the Poppy is running it a close second at the moment…
Or better yet, try our offer to get the best of each kind!
For more of the Japanese Farmer Masanobu Fukuoka’s words (and we highly recommend more of his words are worth it) go explore the books below…
Public Topiary Garden In Hong Kong
I have recently been employed by Gillespies Landscapes to help with a new public topiary garden in Hong Kong, to be cultivated at the bottom of a new skyscraper – The Henderson – which was designed by Zaha Hadid Agency. This is such an exciting project, giving clipped shapes of Carmona a chance to show off what topiary in a garden can do… they will lead the eye and people around the space, offer comfort and tactility to the people who sit on the benches and lean back against these large hedges, and transform the atmosphere for people who visit …
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. …