THE MODERN MINT BLOG
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Welcome to Modern Mint, for home and garden.
We never intended to be a shop. We started as a garden design firm, helping people who felt overwhelmed by their garden learn, season by season, how to make it a beautiful place.
To promote good garden practise we began adding articles to the Modern Mint website. There are now 100’s to explore ranging from environmental issues, to practical techniques for growing flowers, to discussing why we sell a particular item at Modern Mint.
To help you explore it we have provided this Start Here page. Just scroll down to find what interests you the most!
Start here for some free stuff – an e-book we curated for the Chelsea Fringe Festival…
Download ‘Contemporary Green’, a free e-book from Modern Mint
Start here to read some of our most popular garden interviews and essays:
Manifesto for the Modern Gardener
9 Ideas for a Cut Flower Business
The Alternative Guide To What To Do In The Garden This Month
The Charity We Support – Pets as Therapy
Start here for our top products:
Copper Tools for Organic Slug Prevention
Start here to find out where to meet us, or how you to book a talk for your group:
Start here to make sure you stay in touch. We send out news once a month (twice at Christmas) and never sell your email to anyone. It is the best way to be informed about how Modern Mint can help you, and let you know about the unusual home and garden products we have to offer.
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Thank you from all of us at Modern Mint!
Darren
Chloe
Stefano
Clipsham Yew Tree Avenue
With Chris Poole of the European Boxwood and Topiary Society we visited Clipsham Yew Tree Avenue in Rutland. Do you know it? Amazing place! Chris and I were teaching a topiary workshop in order to give local people the skills and technique, and tenacity! to help with the pruning of the avenue and elevate it to something even more special than it already is. Read more about the workshops here. We hope to run a further workshop in September 2026, as well as teach an advanced course too. Check the teaching page through the year as it will be updated …
Aesthetic Pruners Association – New Talk In December
An organisation I love and have been learning lots from in the last two years is the Aesthetic Pruners Association based in the USA. Sharing knowledge with them about clipping and the overlap – and differences! – in style is something worth exploring, so I recommend a visit to their website and to join onto their events and talks, which are all on Zoom meaning you can access them from anywhere in the world. No excuse not to learn! The next event will be led by Jocelyn Cohen and be about ancient trees in the British Landscape. This is such …
The Amelia Project – Episode 88: Didius Julianus
Friends of mine write a sitcom podcast called The Amelia Project (I wrote about this years ago, when they started it….!) December 2024 I had some fun playing the tiny part of Fornio in episode 88 – Didius Julianus. I have not listened to the episode yet, as I am clearly not an actor… and the thought of listening to my dulcet tones for the few minutes I’m in it just… makes me feel ill. But the recording and being in the studio was great fun, the real actors were hilarious and the script is brilliant – not just funny, …