THE MODERN MINT BLOG
Landscaper Essex
Landscaper Essex? Here are photos from a project Modern Mint have been working on over the last few years – do contact us if you want to chat about how we, as a garden designer or landscaper, can help you with your garden.
Alternating cherries and apples along a serpentine wall of this long driveway helps to soften the landscaping…
Low maintenance planting against the house to repalce a rose that had died. Ceanothus will grow taller to add a better sense of scale and interest to the wall.
Check out the rosebay in flower over the wall – nightmare weeding the seeds that land in a traditional border, here any that are missed look integrated into the landscaping…
Slowly turning a traditional herbaceous border into something more akin to a meadow…
This monarda has grown beautifully this year…
Phlox and lavender look good together, but don’t enjoy the same growing conditions – however, here the lavender is planted at the top of a wall above the border of phlox!
The view down from the rose garden…
We started gardening in Hampshire, learning our trade as landscapers on large estates – designing them to look good while also making them easier to maintain.
You can now find us working as a landscaper in Essex, as we moved to the county at the end of 2013. See the Modern Mint About Us page to hear our story.
If you have a garden that isn’t as great as you want it to be, or are finding it difficult to express what it is you want, do check out our portfolio for the work we have done as a designer and landscaper in Essex, Hampshire and Berkshire.
Then contact us now for an informal chat about how we can help.
Happy gardening!
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….! …
ClipFest 2025
On Sunday June 22nd there will be Clipfest 2025 at Ichi-Coo Park in Surrey. It is a celebration of all things pruning and topiary, and I will be there in my capacity of teacher at the European Boxwood and Topiary Society to demonstrate tool cleaning and sharpening, and how to clip. Tickets can be found here on Eventbrite. We are hoping for great weather and to see lots of keen pruners getting their shears out and joining us at this amazing garden! And for more on topiary…
Secateur Holders
A present arrived from Norway today, from a student who visited last February to work with Chris Poole and I on learning topiary. His new hobby – a beautiful and neatly stitched secateur holder. Thrilled with this! The holder will save me keep losing my secatuers too…! Thank you Bernt! It was the same student who introduced me to the APA with whom I am doing a talk at the end of March. Tickets can be bought here for ‘Defining The Essence – Aesthetic Pruning in the Garden’. Do join the European Boxwood and Topiary Society for that!