Last of the Mohicans

Mine’s a ladybird, or it will be one day. At the moment, it’s more of a lump.

Jonathan has a thing about trees. His official job title at The Manor House is Gardener, but he’s not that grabbed by flowers and vegetables. His speciality is topiary, on which he has his own unique take.

He’s self-trained, inspired initially by French ice sculptures. Once, long ago, the Manor House grounds did feature topiary, but by Jonathan’s time the ancient trees had more or less reverted to nature.

Nature, however, had reckoned without Jonathan.

It took him five years to carve his first yew sapling into a passable egg-shape. Another five years, and the sapling is now a two metre high head, complete with eyebrows, lips and a rather startling Mohican hairstyle. Much to the bemusement of the Manor House’s owner.

There’s an elephant at the Manor House too, a pair of peacocks and a number of geometric constructions like giant chess pieces – more conventional than the Mohican, but less alarming to stumble into on a moonlit night.

And now, of course, we all want one. At a house up the road, another Mohican rubs shoulders with a row of feeding chickens. Further on, three rabbits are in the offing. Jonathan works to his own agenda, pruning and coaxing foliage, year after year, into the shapes of his imagination. Customers don’t have a say - you get what you’re given.

He works with a chainsaw, and I doubt if he’s even heard of Edward Scissorhands. Young, good-looking, severely dyslexic and shy, he’s quietly building his own magical Looking Glass World in other people’s gardens.

I think Jonathan’s outgrowing his Mohican phase – hence my ladybird, and the dolphin-jumping-over-a-ball under construction over at the Dower House.

I can’t wait to see the owner's face: he thinks he's getting a nice box pyramid.