THE MODERN MINT BLOG
Pesticide Free City
What do Paris, Seattle, Tokyo, Toronto and Portland all have in common?
They are pesticide free cities.
This is an amazing idea, one supported by River of Flowers in the UK. Basically, it wants people to stop deliberately putting poisons and toxins into our environment.
To see what happens when you stop using pesticides, take a look at the Opera House roof in Paris where Jean Paucton, a prop man now in his 70’s, began keeping bees. In the pesticide free city of Paris he received twice the yield of honey than he did from his hives in the countryside.
Perhaps it will take longer to stop people using pesticides in agriculture, but our cities can stop right now.
Go to River of Flowers for more information about how you can help – we can add London to the list of pesticide free cities above!
Or to see pictures of Jean Paucton, visit Modern Mint’s Pinterest site and check out the Bees board.
Topiary Workshop 2026 at Waltham Place
The next topiary workshop I will be teaching is now live on the website and can be booked! Just visit Waltham Place to get a ticket for the Topiary Workshop I will be teaching on Friday September 4th at Waltham Place. Myself and Chris Poole of the European Boxwood and Topiary Society (Buxus expert! Like, he knows everything there is to know about the plant! So worth booking just to tap into his knowledge….!) will be teaching here for the… fifth year in a row I think? The garden is a beautiful place to spend time clipping. We will teach …
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 …