THE MODERN MINT BLOG

Nov17

Bird Feeder

Bird Feeder

 

Heartened and cheered to discover the British public love to help the birds!

We discovered these bird feeders recently and thought – you know what, we need to give these a go. They are remanufactured from black plastic plant pots, the ones you get in every single damn nursery, shop, hardware store and garden centre going… the same ones that cannot be recycled.

You only have two options with where to get rid of them when you have removed your plant from the pot – either reuse the pot until it breaks, or send it to be crushed up for landfill.

Which is why these bird feeders are so amazing – they take these pots that would normally go to landfill and turn them into something useful!

And because they are plastic they are robust enough to cope with a British winter. And they look great. What more do you need?

As we said, we thought – let’s give these a go and see if anyone else thinks they are brilliant. The feedback we have received has been magnificent – we sold out in the second week!

We now have a few more in stock but they are going fast so please please please you wonderful British public who are so keen to help wildlife – get your recycled bird feeders right now, or you may miss out.

The picture we have shows the birds eating an apple – we prefer raspberries threaded onto the metal spike, and we think the birds probably do as well…

If you need more ideas about what to feed the birds, we also have this fabulous bird cake kit to show you…

Bird cake kit

Basically, you get this bird feeder (the picture shows you the blue one, but we also offer a red bird feeder) that is also recycled – from yoghurt pots!

Then with it comes the bird cake ingredients and the recipe instructions, plus a few more hints and tips about what to feed the birds in your garden. Educating you, getting hands on making a cake for birds (Mary Berry style?) and then doing something to encourage wildlife into your garden and keep it coming back for more… what a fantastic product.

All of that PLUS what we mentioned at the start – it keep plastic out of landfill – right on!

bird cake kit red

Do you bit for wildlife and get a bird feeder or bird cake kit this Autumn, or as a present for someone this Christmas – with these, we can all enjoy doing our bit…

Apr05

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 …

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Jan24

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 …

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Nov21

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. …

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