THE MODERN MINT BLOG

Jul14

Clippings

That’s right, late spring is the time for clipping and pruning those box hedges, balls, cones and other weird and wonderful shapes you have in your garden. So here is a small selection of photos from our work this year…

My nipple

Topiary Portfolio Image1

… we have written before about topiary, so please do delve deeper into our blog to discover more about what the heck it is we are trying to achieve when we get out the shears and secateurs, and why creating a piece of ‘live sculpture’ in your garden may well be the best thing you could do this year…

The Art of Creative Pruning

Jake Hobson and Creative Pruning

Plants for Topiary

Talking of secateurs, the sharpest, shiniest and best value on the market are these ones from Okatsune…

Secateurs Featured Image

And for those of you living in Essex and London, who perhaps have an old hedge or plant that needs renovating, you can always ask us about our Organic Topiary service.

It could be the best and cheapest way to deal with that overgrown established shrub in your garden!

Happy clippings folks!

Aug04

Box Hill – Novella by Adam Mars-Jones

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 …

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Apr14

Topiary, The Art Garden at The Henderson

The Art Garden at The Henderson in Hong-Kong has now opened to the public. I joined the project last March, to work with Gillespies Landscape Architects on the topiary that had been designed for the Art Garden, which gives a calm, green space below the extraordinary Henderson skyscraper designed by Zaha Hadid Architects. The garden has been designed with butterflies in mind, so lots of nectar plants, and has other art projects and installations within its footprint. The history of the site is interesting too – it was originally the first cricket ground in Hong-Kong! So still a green space….! …

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