THE MODERN MINT BLOG
The National Gardens Scheme is well underway for 2014. Yesterday we saw the garden at Ulting Wick in Essex, owned by Phillipa Burrough and run by herself and full-time gardener Neil.
This garden has been featured in Gardens Illustrated, and is renowned locally for the exuberant display of tulips in the spring. It was a real pleasure to walk around and superbly cared for – Phillipa herself was a pocket rocket dashing around with the lawnmower preparing for the big open day on Sunday 27th April. If you are free, do head to this part of Essex and take your time walking around.
We hope it inspires you to be bold with your choice of colour and style of plants!
This year the tulips in the Old Farmyard Garden have been replaced by a new planting scheme, due to a virus in the soil. It has an experimental look, and a competely different atmosphere to when it was packed with tulips, the bright stars of spring. To recreate that ‘wow’ factor in April, without using the variety of colour tulips bring you, is difficult. If you use spring flowers you will get a fresh, verdant look, with lots of yellow, white and blue. Beautiful, but not punchy. Neither will you get the flower power necessary from planting grasses or later season plants either, as in spring time these plants give you more a sense of gathering speed, of putting on their make-up for later. Perhaps biennials will prove the solution?
Already the owner is questioning how it could be improved for next year. This attitude to gardening is commendable and refreshing, as further experimenting will lead to further discoveries (and hopefully more of those breathtaking moments well loved gardens can provide!)
The garden at Ulting Wick is a well worth a visit. As is this one, at Furzelea…
For more garden ideas, check out these books…
Start of the Whitby Topiary Library
I have been offered a space here in the centre of Whitby, south-facing aspect, with some raised beds in, so that I can make a Topiary Library. In my head, a topiary library is a place to showcase the common (and then not so common) shapes you can make out of topiary. With classical topiary plants, as well as some more unusual pieces. This Topiary Library can act as a reference for people to learn more about pruning and clipping. The space is small but the aspect is great and the beds are deep enough to put some plants in. …
Delivery After Dark – From the Makers of The Amelia Project
Last week I spent most nights stood in cold water streams on the moors of North Yorkshire, helping to film a new project called Delivery After Dark from the makers of the Amelia Project. I worked on the Amelia Project back at the end of 2024, lending my terrible vocal talents to a small part in the episode Didius Julianus. But this project is something new – and exciting! – and thankfully only needed me to be filmed, rather than to actually say anything. But not only did I have to stand in cold moving water at midnight, I also …
Modern Topiary (The Book) – Message From Lady Clippers, And Others!
My topiary book – Modern Topiary – has recently been put out as a PDF, which can be read for free. (Have a look here to download and read/share it!) Then last week I received a lovely email from Ann Perkowski of Lady Clippers, who are topiary and pruning specialists in New York (Ann is a brilliant pruning teacher too, who teaches at New York Botanical Garden… check out her work and Lady Clippers website.) Hi Darren, I had to write you how much I love reading your Modern Topiary. I’m not sure I’ll ever be quite done with it because I’m …