THE MODERN MINT BLOG
What do I do with this space? A question clients often ask us, a question we often ask ourselves.
So it became the title of our new talk for winter 2014/2015… but to answer this question, we have realised, is a huge undertaking.
Exploring potential answers left us delving deeper and deeper into new ideas, unpacking thoughts and contemplating the words of garden philosophers, and feeling ever more entangled by the question we had set out to explore. How could such a simple question become so complex? Or as Clarice Lispector puts it in The Passion According to G.H.:
“I don’t know what to do with the horrifying freedom that can destroy me.”
And doesn’t that sum it up well – what do I do with this space? Really, you can do anything.
The art or science or whatever you want to call it is left to you, the way you think and feel and what you know and don’t know… and of course, the ‘don’t-knows’ you are willing to explore.
The talk takes in the work of people from all over the world – starting in Japan, then ending in a dream garden via Scandinavia, Spain, Uruguay, Sheffield and the kitchen of a Parisian chef. It also quotes Motehr Teresa and Jack Gilbert, just to keep the audience on its toes!
It is a fascinating question we have set ourselves and we have had a riot exploring potential answers. Please do come along to the premiere of this new garden talk on Wednesday in Chignall, 7.30pm start.
You can find all the details here on our Talks page.
We hope to see you soon, to share this discussion with us as we ask the question:
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. …
Modern Topiarist @ Garden Masterclass Poland
My video on Modern Topiary for Garden Masterclass has been translated into Polish, for the keen gardeners (and happy pruners!) of Garedn Masterclass in Poland. Tickets for the first showing and q and a were available here. But it will become available on the Garden Masterclass Poland website at some point in the near future – so if you are a keen clipper and want to know more, but speak Polish and not English, then I suggest you visit the website and get watching. (Of course, if you don’t speak English, you may not be able to read this…. hmmm… …
Topiary Hotline
The European Boxwood & Topiary Society are to run a Topiary Hotline for keen gardeners and people who love to clip. Date is tomorrow, April 16th 2024, and you can get a ticket for the Zoom meeting here – Topiary Hotline. Run by Chris Poole and myself, we set this up as an antidote to the huge amount of questions we have to answer about topiary throughout the summer. The plus is that their is an excitement around topiary and pruning. The problem is we need to help people in a better way… … so we will be giving people …