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…
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 …
Aesthetic Pruners Association – New Talk In December
An organisation I love and have been learning lots from in the last two years is the Aesthetic Pruners Association based in the USA. Sharing knowledge with them about clipping and the overlap – and differences! – in style is something worth exploring, so I recommend a visit to their website and to join onto their events and talks, which are all on Zoom meaning you can access them from anywhere in the world. No excuse not to learn! The next event will be led by Jocelyn Cohen and be about ancient trees in the British Landscape. This is such …
The Amelia Project – Episode 88: Didius Julianus
Friends of mine write a sitcom podcast called The Amelia Project (I wrote about this years ago, when they started it….!) December 2024 I had some fun playing the tiny part of Fornio in episode 88 – Didius Julianus. I have not listened to the episode yet, as I am clearly not an actor… and the thought of listening to my dulcet tones for the few minutes I’m in it just… makes me feel ill. But the recording and being in the studio was great fun, the real actors were hilarious and the script is brilliant – not just funny, …