THE MODERN MINT BLOG

Jul21

Making & Maintaining Topiary – Help From Modern Mint

Topiary Service

Modern Mint offers a topiary service.

This means you contact us asking for a helping hand. It can be a shrub, hedge or small tree.

Topiary Make

Darren (that’s me) will then visit you and work out how to make it look great.

Architectural.

Lighter.

A thing of beauty.

 

Topiary Maintain

Topiary hedge maintenance

Topiary

Organic Topiary

Formal Topiary? Or Organic?

There are a few different styles of topiary, and as with any art each ‘pruner’ will bring their own imagination to bear on the piece they make.

Two of the most distinct schools are the formal and the organic.

Organic topiary is where you allow the plant to tell you how it needs to be pruned. You follow its strengths and outlines.

You dance a fine line between what you want it to be and what the plant itself is telling you it could become.

Formal topiary is more the crenellations, the chamfers, the tiers and plinths you see in the gardens of old houses.

Everything is straight, the plant is trained with string if necessary and the pieces are normally large and crisply maintained.

Charlotte Molesworth is the lead practitioner of this in the UK.

I learn a lot from her each time we work together in her own garden.

Charlotte Molesworth

 

If you want to see more, we often post the latest pieces we have made on Instagram.

Help You Make Or Maintain Your Topiary?

First of all you need to choose the right plant. Don’t prune one that won’t grow back!

Secondly, using the right tools is every bit as important. We love, and only use, sharp and shiny Japanese made shears.

Thirdly, take your time. The care you take pruning your plant will show in how good it looks when you are finished.

If you don’t want to clip yourself, or would prefer some guidance the first time, then you can always ask us about it.

I love helping people with their topiary and am happy to answer any questions you might have, so do get in touch now.

Happy clipping!

Aug04

Box Hill – Novella by Adam Mars-Jones

I picked this book up back in 2020 because of the title – Box Hill – fabulous, I thought, a book about boxwood. I’ll peruse this for its respective thoughts on the plant I clip most when I make topiary. I didn’t read the blurb on the back. Didn’t know the author (although I knew the publisher, Fitzcarraldo Editions, as I love many of the essays they have published… so trusted the author would be worth spending time with.) By page 2 I realised this novel wasn’t quite what I had expected. I started the book at 10pm, after getting …

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Apr14

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….! …

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