THE MODERN MINT BLOG
Next year the Garden Museum will be running a brilliant day out visiting traditional and contemporary topiary gardens in Kent and Sussex.
Full details can be found here, for what promises to be a fantastic time seeing gardens!
First stop on the trip will be to meet us and Charlotte Molesworth, in her garden, where will be demonstrating some topiary techniques and offering some of the best tools available for sale.
Charlotte’s garden is an extraordinary place for wildlife, so this is not to be missed!
Lunch will then be taken at the Walled Garden, where you will be able to see the cucumber and melon houses, before heading over to Fairlight End, the garden of Chris and Robin Hutt.
You may well have seen this garden on TV many times, or featured in magazines.
It is sure to be an inspiring trip and we are really looking forward to meeting these keen topiary artists, exciting them and sharing with them our joy at being able to create architectural shapes from the leaves and branches of plants!
For more information and to book your place, go here to The Garden Museum Website.
For fun with some pruning tools? Go here.
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 …