THE MODERN MINT BLOG
Hypertufa High Jinks
The Chelsea Fringe is about all things gardening, but that doesn’t mean you always have to be outside. One of the online projects you can see at this years festival is ‘Hypertufa High Jinks’…
… ‘Hypertufa High Jinks’ is run by garden writer Ansel Oommen and science artist Cynthia Nguyen.
Follow Hetty the hypertufa elephant as she travels the ‘world’, magnifying the tiny spaces around us that often go unnoticed. So come down and take a closer look: that patch of weeds may as well be a jungle or that pebble, a treacherous mountain. You never know what stories lurk in the undergrowth when you let your imagination wander.
A brilliant idea!
Hetty’s adventures will be updated from New York City during the run of the festival (May 17th – June 8th.)
And don’t forget Modern Mint have their own online project “You Should Have Seen It Last Week…” if you crave even more online gardening fun… or it’s raining outside.
If it is raining outside… then get yourself a gardening book… we recommend…
Topiary Teaching For 2026
A new year, so time to share a few thoughts on what I will be looking at doing with topiary, and the focus on teaching I would like to put in place, for 2026 and beyond. Above is Nandina, made by a student of ours from the European Boxwood and Topiary Society. She took a year to work on this, taking a plant not renowned for being a good topiary plant, but seeing what its weirdness is and what values it does have, then exploring and exploding those. I am thrilled by this. Not just this look for autumn. A …
Topiary Workshop 2026 at Waltham Place
The next topiary workshop I will be teaching is now live on the website and can be booked! Just visit Waltham Place to get a ticket for the Topiary Workshop I will be teaching on Friday September 4th at Waltham Place. Myself and Chris Poole of the European Boxwood and Topiary Society (Buxus expert! Like, he knows everything there is to know about the plant! So worth booking just to tap into his knowledge….!) will be teaching here for the… fifth year in a row I think? The garden is a beautiful place to spend time clipping. We will teach …
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 …