THE MODERN MINT BLOG
Permaculture Magazine
Do any of you read Permaculture Magazine? We have just found out about it and are very excited to see they not only sell lovely copper tools, but also have a fantastic website. On it you can:
Sign up to Permaculture courses.
Hear podcasts and watch videos about how people are changing the way they live to be more resilient and self-sustaining.
Find recipes for making use of plants and weeds you may not think about eating.
Get solutions for your own permaculture experiments.
(Oh, and you can of course buy the magazine….)
What is Permaculture?
“Permaculture is the design of an ecologically sound way of living.”
We thought this quote was beautiful and really inspires us to think about how we garden, work and live.
We hope you will take heart from this phrase and begin to question, then seek answers, for a way of life that suits both yourself and the world around you.
If you want to know more about gardening organically, try this blog: Manifesto for the Modern Gardener.
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, …
Waltham Place Topiary Workshop 2026
With the European Boxwood and Topiary Society, I run two workshops each year at Waltham Place, one of my favourite gardens. The next topiary workshop there will be on Friday September 4th 2026. Details and how to book yet to be announced, but get in touch with them now to get on the waiting list, as last year we had double the amount of people wanting a place than we had space for. The Waltham Place website is here – topiary workshop 2026. See the teaching page for how else I can help you with the topiary in your garden …
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 …