THE MODERN MINT BLOG
Gardening Jobs August
What are the gardening jobs to do in August?
1) Make hay while the sun shines (you can always do this by scything…)
2) Prune wisteria.
3) Deadhead your dahlias.
4) Be water-wise (don’t water your lawn, use harvested rainwater instead of tap water. If you haven’t harvested any rainwater, try somewhere like Harrod Horticultural for ideas.)
5) Start thinking about ordering bulbs for planting in Autumn – we are doing a garden design in Upminster, Essex at the moment and will be adding lots of daffodils – cannot wait!
6) Use up your courgettes – put them in chocolate cake, barbeque them, slice them thinly, add creme fraiche and then grate lemon zest over the top – they are a brilliant vegetable. We are growing Striato d’Napoli this year and it looks great…
7) Harvest your blackcurrants (what do you mean you haven’t planted any blackcurrants?) and make cassis or add to porridge. Yum!
8) Trim your yew and beech hedging.
9) It’s hot. So enjoy the last days of summer and don’t work too hard…
For more in depth knowledge on what to do now, try these books…
RHS Gardening Through The Year
Four-season Harvest: Organic Vegetables from Your Home Garden All Year Long
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 …
The Henderson, Topiary Art Interview on Instagram
In a suit… eek! View this post on Instagram A post shared by The Henderson (@thehenderson_hk)
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….! …