Fifty years ago, June 1967 ushered in the ‘Summer of Love’ to the accompaniment of the Beatles’ masterwork ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’. The album cover featured groundbreaking artwork and has since become an icon in its own right.
Clifton Nurseries in Maida Vale, London (now owned by Gavin Jones Ltd) supplied the plants featured on the original album cover. To mark this important point in UK social and music history and Clifton’s part in it, Gavin Jones Ltd decided to create a plant installation loosely based on the album cover. The installation was destined for display at Chiswick House Gardens (where Gavin Jones Ltd maintain the grounds) and where also the videos for some of the Sgt Pepper’s tracks were filmed.
Looking for an unusual approach towards the display, Gavin Jones Ltd decided to focus on the flowerbed at the bottom of the album cover. Obviously no display of this sort would be complete without the figures of the Beatles themselves and, seeking the best in the business to supply topiary models of John, Paul, George and Ringo based on their images on the album cover, Gavin Jones Ltd came to Agrumi. No further discussion was needed. We grasped the creative intention immediately and were delighted to accept the challenge of literally bringing the 2D album cover to 3D life.
Agrumi’s brief was to incorporate colour in the replication of the Fab Four’s famous military costumes. But, because the installation was to feature at the RHS Chelsea Fringe and Hampton Court after Chiswick House Gardens, it was decided that living flowers would be less robust and long-lived that dyed moss. The final design was made with robust, long-stranded, texturally attractive New Zealand sphagnum moss.
Agrumi’s topiarist excelled himself with the fabrication of these figures and we were proud to play a pivotal role in celebrating the birth of this national and international totem of musical progress.
Clifton Nurseries: Celebrating 50 Years of Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Gavin Jones: Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Garden Feature at Chiswick House
You can never have too much of a good thing!
No sooner had we finished our Red Shanked Douc monkey project for the Body Shop than we were contacted by Stephan Hammar one of the gardeners at the beautiful 19 th -century Trädgårdsföreninge in Gothenburg, Sweden.
The park is celebrating its 175 th birthday and the staff particularly wanted to commemorate Ricky and Tony - two chimpanzees that lived in the 1878 Palm House which had been designed and built by the British firm Alexander Shanks & Sons.
Stephan explained that pictures of our “wonderful” Red Shanked Douc monkeys had caught the park staffs’ attention and they commissioned us to make two topiary chimpanzees for the Palm House. The analogy between the Red Shanked Douc and Shanks & Sons seemed serendipitous too.
There are many anatomical differences between the Red Shanked Douc and its more prosaic cousin the chimpanzee. Never ones to shirk a design challenge we carefully researched the physical appearance of the chimpanzee and, as the photo shows, we captured every nuance of limb length, head shape and characteristic body pose.
As usual the project was delivered on time and within budget and it was gratifying to get Stephan’s response thanking us for the “great design” and letting us know that the chimps were “hugely appreciated by our visitors.”
Arts events organisers Fantasy High Street brought Agrumi on board this summer to help them deliver an outdoor arts programme in public spaces around the London Bridge area.
The month-long festival of free outdoor installations – art, workshops and performances – was commissioned to playfully respond to the title ‘Revealed’ by creating green oases in unexpected places around the borough.
Working closely with Fantasy High Street’s Creative Director Lydia Fraser-Ward, Agrumi’s expert topiarist made a series of large-scale flowers demonstrating the process of opening their petals to the sun.
Fabricated from beautiful Star Jasmine plants the topiary helped ‘green up’ this densely populated part of the inner city.
We’re already working on more art meets topiary installations. Watch this space!
We’re broadening our horizons as the Agrumi name increasingly gets checked internationally as well as UK-wide.
Recent States-side commissions include this cheeky monkey and letter ‘H’ for the Hyde Beach consortium at the SLS hotel in Miami.
Celebrated for their energy, style and effortless ‘cool’ in Los Angeles and Las Vegas, South Beach is the new outlet for the company’s offer of mixology, music and fantastic food with pool and beach access.
Hyde Beach chose Agrumi bespoke topiary to enhance their indoor/outdoor space with a little English style.
Other recent U.S. projects include the word ‘Almanak’ in topiary for the eponymous pavilion at the new Nordic-themed Great Northern Food Hall in New York.
This 5,000 square foot space at Grand Central Station is the brainchild of celebrity chef Claus Meyer (co-founder of Noma).
The Kentucky Derby is the U.S. equivalent of Ascot and millinery is just as important there as it is here. The drink of choice tends to be rum or bourbon rather than champagne though.
Agrumi was asked to make a topiary Bacardi bottle for this year’s Derby – a prestigious commission for a prestigious event!
Alan Titchmarsh is probably the UK’s most famous gardening expert and something of a national ‘treasure’. He’s been associated with ITV’s flagship gardening programme since it first aired back in 2014. Agrumi came on board then too when we supplied our first piece for them – a 6’ tall topiary giraffe for ex-nurse Joan.
The programme’s producers have described us as “fabulous topiary makers” and we have been very happy to continue our relationship with them. Our latest contribution was a pair of rearing topiary horses for the episode that aired on 19 July 2016.
Alan decided that they needed a focal point to draw the eye to client Caroline’s new vegetable garden. Caroline used to work for the RSPCA, loves horses and was a keen rider.
Knowing our work, Alan and his team relied on us to come up with topiary horse designs that would please Caroline and provide visual interest in what could otherwise have been an uninspiring section of her garden.
As the photograph shows, our topiary pieces are real stars in this garden – perhaps only outdone by Alan himself!
Each horse is handmade and retails at a very reasonable £208.50. Give us a call to see how a piece of our bespoke topiary could animate your garden.
The Body Shop is a great British business that has gone global. It’s well known for its campaigning stance on environmental issues and, as part of this commitment, they’re investing in an ambitious ‘Bio-bridges’ project with the World Land Trust.
Bio-bridges are restored ‘wildlife corridors’ in damaged landscapes that help endangered species to thrive. The first Bio-bridge project has just started in North Central Vietnam where 14.5 million square meters of rainforest will be reinstated through Body Shop investment and donations from customers’ in-store purchases.
The Body Shop works with partner companies that share a similar vision about sustainability and care for the environment. Their PR, Another Word, had no hesitation in coming to us for help with the project’s promotional campaign.
The photo below shows the impressive 1.8m tall topiary Red Shanked Douc monkeys we made for display on Westminster Bridge. The Red Shanked Douc is indigenous to the area of Vietnam where the Bio-bridge is located and on the International Union for Conservation of Nature red list of endangered species.
The topiary animals were fabricated at our New Forest nursery with our usual care and attention to anatomical detail. The difficulty was obtaining permission from Transport for London to site the figures on the bridge – its structure with the trefoil patterning and paintwork are statutorily protected.
All came good in the end though and Another Word were delighted saying “Just wanted to drop you all a note to say thanks for making today such a success. The client was delighted with production, procedure, media and monkeys. And I know you all went above and beyond to make it a great event.”
1p from every purchase made in Body Shop stores will be going towards the Bio-bridges initiative. We’ll be shopping there – will you?
We’ve transformed the most popular landmarks from #Glastonbury into topiary structures providing 4GEE WiFihttps://t.co/Rte0eTR2Iz
— EE (@EE) June 23, 2016
This year we were able to make our own small ‘hedge lining’ contribution towards the unique sensory experience that is Glastonbury when we were invited to collaborate with EE.
Besides being the UK’s largest mobile network operator, EE is also the Festival’s official communications and technology partner. Phone charging is a crucial part of their Festival offering and they turned to us to help make the free to all, on-site 4G ‘hotspots’ eye-catching.
This year EE had doubled their ‘hotspot’ capacity and went all out to give them extra visual appeal too. We were commissioned to fabricate a series of topiary installations based on the Festival’s most famous landmarks including the Pyramid stage, Arcadia spider and Park Tower. Each installation provided a cover for 4G technology inside.
In the spirit of the natural outdoors appeal of music festivals the world over (and Glastonbury in particular) we decorated each topiary piece with brightly coloured silk flowers and ribbons. We added LED lights to keep the facility attractive at night too.
Flower power and mobile power combined to make uploading selfies to Instagram, sharing memorable moments via Snapchat, checking in on Facebook and joining the conversation on Twitter easy and fun.
This Easter weekend saw Agrumi collaborating with the National Trust and Cadbury’s to provide children of all ages with delicious fun.
It’s the ninth year that the famous chocolate producer has sponsored Easter egg hunts at over 250 Trust properties around the country. Looking for a novel way to publicize the events through a photo shoot the public relations company involved contacted Agrumi for ideas.
As a tribute to the ongoing commitment of Cadbury’s to the event we made eight oversized, 122 cm bunnies and one giant 244 cm bunny in the image of the company’s Easter-focused rabbit logo. Each figure is unique with detachable heads and legs giving the PR stylist great flexibility in displaying them for the camera.
Beneath a covering of expertly applied artificial box plants the figures have been realised through frames made from steel wire. Added together the wire would stretch the length of seven football pitches! Although David Beckham could probably run that in a minute, it took our chief topiary artist rather longer to make the nine bunnies come to life. Nonetheless, we delivered this sizeable commission to Cadbury’s and the National Trust in less than a couple of weeks.
The main photo shoot took place at Stourhead, the Trust’s beautiful Palladian mansion in Wiltshire. Ably accompanied by two adorable children you can see that the bunnies did Agrumi, and the Trust proud and look just like the Cadbury’s original.
Now the 244 cm rabbit is staying at Stourhead while the other bunnies have made their way to the Trust properties at Wimpole, Stowe, Fountains Abbey, Hardwick Hall and Tredegar House to advertise their Easter events and inject more fun into the celebrations. The remaining 122 cm bunny is being used by the Trust and Cadbury’s as a competition prize on social media.
Contact us to see how some glorious Agrumi topiary could boost awareness of your products and company.
What does Agrumi have in common with artists Eduardo Paollozzi, Peter Blake, Howard Hodgkin, Bridget Riley and Michael Craig-Martin? Answer: they have all had work commissioned by the Ivy.
Time was when the Ivy was a lone, but legendary restaurant in the heart of London’s theatre land. It played host to regulars Laurence Olivier, Vivien Leigh, Marlene Dietrich and Noël Coward. Time has moved on though and the original restaurant has been joined by sister restaurants around London.
This Easter Agrumi was honoured to join the pantheon of illustrious British artists associated with the Ivy by providing the Chelsea branch with a bunny appropriately made out of small-leafed living Hedera (or Ivy) and planted in a specially-commissioned terracotta pot from the Whichford Pottery. The figure stands over two meters tall and, as you can see, it is balancing meter high pink egg on its nose. The egg is made of dyed natural moss and the bunny’s whiskers are made from natural brush bristles. For a finishing touch we put a pink bow tie on the figure to match those worn by the Ivy’s waiters.
Our efforts for Easter and the Ivy chain didn’t stop there. We also made an identical bunny for the Covent Garden branch - except this one is fabricated from green dyed natural moss and, instead of a bow tie, it has silk daisy flowers as buttons down its front. A fetching combination as our photograph shows!
Finally, we made a couple of meter high bunnies for the Marylebone branch each standing in more specially commissioned Whichford pots.
Give us a call to see how we can help you connect with your customers in original ways. With lots of events coming up over the summer season now’s the time to think about using Agrumi’s topiary to make your business stand out.
Anyone for tennis?
Christmas 2015 and Agrumi was called on by RHS Wisley to lend some Fifth Avenue-style flair to their gift shop. The idea was to transform the shop’s frontage into the sort of high-end portal to a retail experience that you might find in New York.
The festive period is an important time of year for any organization looking to maximize sales and the RHS is no exception. Their gift shop needed to look enticing with the promise of desirable purchases inside.
Like many retailers in winter, the RHS also wanted to persuade customers to ignore the cold, dark evening and any temptation to head straight home after a day out.
Agrumi answered the brief by creating this stunning display out of artificial box, studded with hundreds of twinkling fairy lights. The finished structure was fitted seamlessly to the contours of the building beneath, yet lightweight and easy to install.
We look forward to working with the RHS again in 2016.
