I attended a topiary workshop with topiary artist Charlotte Molesworth at her incredible garden in Benenden, Kent, which included a tour of the garden that Charlotte and her husband Donald have been cultivating for 40 years. It’s organic, full of wildlife and has the most extraordinary pruned shapes made from yew and boxwood. Particular attention to the needs of nesting birds and small mammals lend this artistic plantswoman’s garden a rare and unusual quality.

As well as practice, there were demos on keeping box caterpillar at bay using organic controls, best tools advice and how to maintain plus shrubs/plants used.  There’s plenty of Buxus at The Grange that I can practice these skills to create some ‘living sculptures’.

Part of research funded by an RHS & Thistledown Horticultural bursaries (report to be written at a later date).