THE MODERN MINT BLOG

Apr25

Ulting Wick Garden, Essex, NGS

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.

Old Farmyard Garden

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This year the tulips in the Old Farmyard Garden have been replaced by a new planting scheme, due to a virus in the soil.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…

Jan28

Monty Don British Gardens Episode 4

I hadn’t seen the new Monty Don series ‘Monty Don’s British Gardens’ but I was sent a message one evening to say stick it on – episode 4 especially! On the episode were three gardens I make and clip the topiary in… the photo above is my quizzical boxwood emu… which looks ridiculous out of context of the wider topiary garden it sits in… but hey! Showcases what you can do with boxwood, when given enough time to let it grow! But also on the episode were Waltham Place, one of my favourite gardens and a place I teach topiary …

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Nov01

Topiary Art In Hong Kong, The Henderson

Here are a couple of photos of the topiary work I have been doing in Hong Kong for the Art Garden at the bottom of the brand new skyscraper, The Henderson. The building has been designed by Zaha Hadid Architects and this November 2024 the garden at the base of the structure will be planted up, with lots of topiary originally designed by Gillespies Landscape Architects, grown by Tarzan Nursery in China, and then clipped and refined into shape by…. me. Will update with photos from The Henderson Art Garden when all is completed and the garden is opened, but …

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Apr16

EBTS Boxwood Growers Forum

Through the European Boxwood and Topiary Society I worked with Chris Poole and Sue Mesher, members of the EBTS board, and we set up a Boxwood Growers Forum. This was to discuss how to make sure this wonderful topiary plant stays in the public conscioussness – we know many growers, suppliers and distributors have stopped selling it as the cost of replacing boxwood that has blight, or is nibbled by the boxwood caterpillar, makes it unviable to offer to clients and gardeners. But Boxwood is a phoenix plant, and there are ways to deal with the problems associated with Buxus. …

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