THE MODERN MINT BLOG
Capture Carbon In Your Garden
For the fourth year in a row Modern Mint will be taking part in the Chelsea Fringe festival. The Chelsea Fringe is THE alternative garden festival that runs alongside the Chelsea Flower Show, bringing a more whimsical and anarchic energy to gardens and garden lovers all over the world.
It has truly become a remarkable event.
At Modern Mint we have names this years project ‘Capture Carbon In Your Garden.’
What Is Our 2017 Chelsea Fringe Project About?
In a nutshell, we are sharing with you the ways you can make a difference to the world and lower your carbon footprint – by using the plants and soils in your garden to capture CO2 and store it for the long-term.
This is not just a wishy washy project that you do for a little bit and then forget about. By making your garden into a carbon sink, you also improve growing conditions for the plants in your garden.
Our soils are improved by humification, the adding of organic matter. The better our soils the better the plants that grow in them. Now, humus is made up of 60% carbon, so that is one amazing way to improve the vigour and health of everything you plant.
It is best practise, and just makes sense, to capture carbon in your garden.
For more on how to do it, read Capture Carbon In Your Garden.
Who Inspired Our Chelsea Fringe Project 2017?
Why have decided to make the capture of carbon our project aim for 2017? Well, we are inspired in our gardening practise by a number of people, all brilliant minds who are following fine values.
Check them out:
Monica Araya, Building A Society Without Fossil Fuels
John Walker, the Earth Friendly Gardener
Village Farm, Fighting Climate Change on the Farm
Tshering Tobgay, from Carbon Negative Bhutan
Ecological Gardening, a brilliant blog about Carbon Capture
Carbon Gold, a company making a difference
The Third Plate, fabulous book on food and health from chef Dan Barber
These people have really made us think about how, with a few simple actions taken, our gardens can change the local landscape as well as the wider world.
Ignoring the fact that the same week we announced our carbon capture project, Donald Trump said he would use more coal to power the USA while the UK announced with great excitement that it had found 1 billion barrels of the stuff, untapped, 60 miles from the coast of Shetland…. we decided we still needed to carry on with sharing this idea to reduce our CO2 footprint.
Taking such joy in finding oil these days seems so backward. Yes, it will make investors a lot of money, but it makes Britain look silly next tot the people of Bhutan and Costa Rica, who are ploughing ahead with clean energy from renewable sources.
So what can we do? Just our best, with what we have got – our gardens, and their ability to capture carbon.
Good luck with your capture carbon project and let us know how it goes!
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 …
Topiary Library
I do a lot of teaching topiary. I had the opportunity from my mentor, Charlotte Molesworth, to work on her garden and experiment and test techniques and generally try making shapes without the worry of failure, or being fired, or being sued and run out of business for getting it wrong. This opportunity was essential (along with Charlotte’s insistance that pruning standards had to be high!) in becoming better at topiary. When I look around the world at our cultural vitamins, what we see in the media day in and day out, I see the stupidest and grossest of people …
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 …