THE MODERN MINT BLOG

Aug09

Edinburgh Festival 2018. What We Recommend.

It is time for the Edinburgh Festival 2018 – hurray for August!

We will be in Edinburgh for 2 days towards the end of month, meaning we miss out on a few days work pruning topiary and cutting the stone fruits in the orchards.

Darren Guardian Topiary

Topiary Make

Topiary hedge maintenance

However, it will be great to rest my back a bit and take in some great shows. Many clients are also going to Edinburgh and have been asking for recommendations, so here goes below…. to point you in the right direction:

Jordan Gray: People Change

Mel Byron: Old Movies Saved My Life

Will Seaward: Spooky Midnight Ghost Stories

Eleanor Morton: Great Title, Glamorous Photo – brilliant comic who will be performing here at ‘The Daft & The Dispossessed’ in October. Go buy a ticket!

Loose Brie

Tony Law: A Lost Show

Paul Foot: Image Conscious

Pauline Eyre & Rebecca How: Better

Succubus – a lovely, early in the day show. Get the magazine too!

We would also recommend Daniel Rubinstein, Mawaan Rizwan, Sheep, John-Luke Roberts, Leslie Mcjagger, ACMS, Kieran Hodgson, Natalie Palamides, Jordan Brookes, Flo and Joan, Daniel Kitson (if you can get tickets) and Alun Cochrane. I may have forgotten a few. But that will hopefully be enough to get you started!

Hope you enjoy them all!

The Modern Mint Team.

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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