THE MODERN MINT BLOG

Sep18

The Big Tree Plant

Big Tree Plant

Funding has been secured from DEFRA through the Big Tree Plant programme to plant 17,000 trees in Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk over a period of two years.

Over 8000 trees were pplanted last season and there are another 9000 to go from this October 2014 to February 2015.

What do you need to do?

Provide a site which will take a minimum of 200 whips at 1m spacing.

Provide a site that is publicly accessible.

Encourage the local community to get involved in the planting and (ideally) the upkeep too.

What will Groundworks Essex (who secured the funding) do?

Help organise the communities involvement.

Provide protection for the trees from rabbits, strimmers etc…

Help design the scheme with their Landscape architect.

Provide additional trees and shrubs that are larger than whips if this is deemed necessary.

Tailor the design to suit your needs and site.

And most importantly…?

Fund up to 75% of the whole cost of the project, or even more than that if there is match funding or donations of time from another source.

How do you find out more?

To find out more about the Big Tree Plant scheme please get in touch with Kim Howell on 01268 752368; kim.howell@groundwork.org.uk

Apr16

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. …

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Apr15

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… …

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Apr15

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 …

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