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.
Monty Don British Gardens Episode 4
I hadn’t seen the new Monty Don series ‘Monty Don’s British Gardens’ but I was sent a message one evening to say stick it on – episode 4 especially! On the episode were three gardens I make and clip the topiary in… the photo above is my quizzical boxwood emu… which looks ridiculous out of context of the wider topiary garden it sits in… but hey! Showcases what you can do with boxwood, when given enough time to let it grow! But also on the episode were Waltham Place, one of my favourite gardens and a place I teach topiary …
Topiary Art In Hong Kong, The Henderson
Here are a couple of photos of the topiary work I have been doing in Hong Kong for the Art Garden at the bottom of the brand new skyscraper, The Henderson. The building has been designed by Zaha Hadid Architects and this November 2024 the garden at the base of the structure will be planted up, with lots of topiary originally designed by Gillespies Landscape Architects, grown by Tarzan Nursery in China, and then clipped and refined into shape by…. me. Will update with photos from The Henderson Art Garden when all is completed and the garden is opened, but …
EBTS Boxwood Growers Forum
Through the European Boxwood and Topiary Society I worked with Chris Poole and Sue Mesher, members of the EBTS board, and we set up a Boxwood Growers Forum. This was to discuss how to make sure this wonderful topiary plant stays in the public conscioussness – we know many growers, suppliers and distributors have stopped selling it as the cost of replacing boxwood that has blight, or is nibbled by the boxwood caterpillar, makes it unviable to offer to clients and gardeners. But Boxwood is a phoenix plant, and there are ways to deal with the problems associated with Buxus. …