THE MODERN MINT BLOG
When I.T. Matters
When It Matters designed our website. We know very little about websites and computers (we much prefer gardening) so they have been great for …
My Garden
My Garden is the title of the final chapter in Russell Page’s ‘The Education of a Gardener’… In it he lays out the garden he dreams of one day having… “The mood I seek above all is one of relaxation given by a garden, easy and untortured, in which plants, however rare and strange, will grow and take their place naturally and discreetly.” We have moved to Chelmsford recently from Hampshire, to design gardens in the drier Essex landscape, and have reduced our garden down to an allotment and a balcony. The problem with being a gardener (and Russell Page …
Ryoan-ji
Last November the Modern Mint team went to view the gardens of Japan (and eat sushi, in vast quantities.) This picture, at the famous Zen garden of Ryoan-ji, was taken at 7.50am on a Monday morning. Hence the privacy. There are 15 stones in the garden, but only 14 can be viewed at any one time from the platform. It is said that if you gain enlightenment the fifteenth stone will be revealed to you. We didn’t find enlightenment, but we did have to get up early, take three buses and then knock on the temple door asking to be allowed in in order to get any time …
Woodpeckers, Essex, NGS
We visited the 1 1/2 acre garden Woodpeckers at Burnham on Crouch over the last bank holiday weekend. It felt like a bigger garden than this, split as it was into different spaces each with their own atmosphere. What we liked most was that each space was clearly defined. It takes a brave owner to do that,to take the plunge and not dilute the quality each space in the garden has been asked to provide. The meadows in the orchard were beautiful at this time of year… … at least we thought so. We overheard one visitor say, “it’s all just managed weeds,” as …