THE MODERN MINT BLOG
You may know that the first week of May is National Nurseries Week, a time to celebrate some of the best plant growers in the UK.
So to help you choose where to buy your plants, here are three nurseries you may never have heard about before…
King John’s Nursery, East Sussex
Primarily focused on herbaceous perennials, vegetable plugs too.
Wykeham Mature Plants, Yorkshire
Walled garden with over 100 acres of field grown trees and shrubs.
Specialists in drought tolerant herbaceous and architectural plants.
… get to know your local nurseries – you’ll get better advice, better service and better plants.
What more can you ask for?
Further Reading:
British Gardens in Time: The Greatest Gardens and the People Who Shaped Them
… and for something related, but a bit different…
Tree Nurseries – Cultivating the Urban Jungle: Plant Production Worldwide
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 …