THE MODERN MINT BLOG

Mar01

Gentle Heart

3 ideas for becoming a better gardener – have clear eyes, a quiet mind and a gentle heart.

These pictures are from a trip to the west of Ireland last October. It was easy to sit on the beach here, to let go of worries and any stresses and just… allow the time to pass. It really was a place to cultivate the eyes, the mind and the heart.

Irish Beach

Flowers

Gentle Heart

Your garden is a place to do this too. Enjoy it, work on and with it, and allow it to change you in its soft and understated way.

Use your garden to cultivate clear eyes, a quiet mind and a gentle heart in you.

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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