THE MODERN MINT BLOG
I picked this book up back in 2020 because of the title – Box Hill – fabulous, I thought, a book about boxwood. I’ll peruse this for its respective thoughts on the plant I clip most when I make topiary.
I didn’t read the blurb on the back. Didn’t know the author (although I knew the publisher, Fitzcarraldo Editions, as I love many of the essays they have published… so trusted the author would be worth spending time with.)
By page 2 I realised this novel wasn’t quite what I had expected.
I started the book at 10pm, after getting into bed, finished it at 2.30am. Was up for work at 5am and the whole drive down to the garden I was clipping in that day I was thinking about Box Hill… the book knocked me out, I couldn’t stop going over what I had read.
It was shocking (because of the incongruity between subject matter and the suburban lives the characters led?) and refused a Hollywood ending – they didn’t live happily ever after, they had the sort of ending life prefers to offers – a mystery as to why people acted that way and a sort of, a clutching, and an aching, to know with finality why… but it never comes for the character, as it rarely comes for people.
Just get on and live then.
This subversion of the normal story ending is, I guess, why it itched at my thinking all day and onwards after that.
It has been made into a film called Pillion, released at the Cannes Film Festival this year. I read it got a 7 minute standing ovation when it finished.
I chose this book for the “Depressing Book Club” I’ve joined at Becketts Cafe in Whitby. The club members who read it were as shocked as I was (even reading it a second time), but it opened up so much unprompted discussion… and I hope has stayed with people the way it stayed with me.
Box Hill may not offer you much new information about boxwood or topiary – though the word coriaceous is now imprinted in my mind, blinking at me behind my eyes whenever I see a boxwood leaf – but the book is so beautifully written it is a fruitful use of the few hours it will take to read and may, just may, tilt the balance of the moral landscape we so securely plant our feet in.
(King Kong Theory from the same publisher did much the same to me on reading it too.)
Happy clipping of your boxwood, and happy reading of Box Hill!
Michael Gibson, New York Topiary Art!
In the New York Times earlier this year was a lovely interview with Michael Gibson, who makes topiary and gardens in New York. The article is here but you may not have access… however, search the internet, find it and have a read. It is great! His philosophy of pruning is especially worth it… Sacred geometry in topiary? Yes please! What a phrase! I think (and speak) of balance, of major and minor, of leaf volume… but sacred geometry might well make it into my topiary teaching lexicon! And the idea of directional trimming? I realise I do this, but …
Topiary Library
I do a lot of teaching topiary. I had the opportunity from my mentor, Charlotte Molesworth, to work on her garden and experiment and test techniques and generally try making shapes without the worry of failure, or being fired, or being sued and run out of business for getting it wrong. This opportunity was essential (along with Charlotte’s insistance that pruning standards had to be high!) in becoming better at topiary. When I look around the world at our cultural vitamins, what we see in the media day in and day out, I see the stupidest and grossest of people …
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 …