THE MODERN MINT BLOG
If you are a garden designer in need of some topiary for a project, please do get in touch here at Modern Mint.
Darren has been pruning trees and hedges for 18 years. Charlotte has been a topiary artist (and is the best you will find) for well over 3 decades. 
We are happy to help you design a topiary, provide ideas or feedback for an existing piece, maintain a sculpture to the highest standard or advise on the health and management of the plants.
We work all over the UK and into Europe.
Often we are asked to prune and sculpt in boxwood or yew, but are equally at home working with deciduous plants. Also don’t forget that heavy set evergreen shrubs, like camellias for example, can be made a feature of the garden through judicious cutting in the just the right places.
Giving these shrubs air, light and a feeling of transparency is all part of the topiary arts.
You can see a recent interview we gave to the Guardian, with photos, here – Cutting Hedge Technology.
Or please do contact us now to talk through your project.
Many thanks!
Darren and Charlotte
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 …
Aesthetic Pruners Association – New Talk In December
An organisation I love and have been learning lots from in the last two years is the Aesthetic Pruners Association based in the USA. Sharing knowledge with them about clipping and the overlap – and differences! – in style is something worth exploring, so I recommend a visit to their website and to join onto their events and talks, which are all on Zoom meaning you can access them from anywhere in the world. No excuse not to learn! The next event will be led by Jocelyn Cohen and be about ancient trees in the British Landscape. This is such …
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, …