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!
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 …