THE MODERN MINT BLOG
For those of you ahead of the bell curve, working on the edges of contemporary garden design, then you will of course be building a rain garden – to slow down, filter, store and re-use rainwater in the garden.
To help you, here are 10 plants for rain gardens….
- Rudbeckia
- Persicaria
- Eupatorium
- Monarda
- Aster
- Hosta
- Iris
- Miscanthus
- Carex
- Cornus
What do you notice about these plants? They are all good, tough garden plants whether you have a rain garden or not. Use them!
As a bonus – Crocosmia, Bergenia, Hellebore and Sanguisorba will not have a problem being flooded occasionally either.
As a double bonus – check out the flowers in the daisy family (Asteraceae) – we have already suggested a few in the list above (Rudbeckia, Aster and Eupatorium, if you’re interested) but Helenium and Inula could also be used.
Want a bulb to add? Camassia, that amazing blue flower, is our choice.
Try these to get you started planting up your rain garden – they will make the garden look amazing!
For mor help with your rain garden, try these books:
Seminar On Topiary Composition
Topiary Composition and design is a major part of my work – which is why I have created an online seminar for keen gardeners and creatives to learn how to compose a piece of topiary. There are several dates available so please head here to buy a ticket. The seminar lasts two hours (including q and a) and will explore the process needed to look at a shrub or hedge and work out what you can design from it. These principles have been learnt the hard way – through mentoring, experimenting and years of practise. Hopefully, it will help you shortcut …
Brought By Bike – Topiary Making
Brought By Bike is an excellent website I found last month, where businesses offer their services by (of course) bicycle. Modern Mint and my topiary work is now live on the site offering my topiary services, via bike, to the following two postcodes – CM1 CM2 Now I can imagine I will need to borrow a ladder should anyone have a larger shrub, but most town gardens in the Chelmsford area have a need not just for privacy but to let light into the house… so a balance must be struck when shaping hedges and shrubs to cover both needs. …
Transforming Topiary
Transforming Topiary – a video made for the European Boxwood And Topiary Society by Charlotte Molesworth and I, in her garden. We take a dog topiary and work out how to update it, turning it into a bird. Worth a watch I think, and hopefully useful to you! You can see more of my clipping on the topiary page. Or read my Spring 2021 Topiary Provocation here.