It’s a difficult balance to strike in twenty-first-century Britain, but I think there’s room for greater softness and abundance without a threat to either plants or people.
No reader of this book will be in any doubt about how much Vita loved her borders to be packed. She hated the sight of too much mulch, criticising Edwardian rose gardens with their ‘savagely pruned roses of uniform height, with bare ground in between, liberally disfigured by mulches of unsightly and unsavoury manure’.
There’s no doubt that many people expect a tidier world now than in the 1930s, 40s and 50s. You can see that from our countryside, which many of us expect to be maintained almost to the level of a golf green – lane edges mown, hedges clipped, brambles cut from our footpaths – but it’s even truer of our gardens opened to the public.
So there’s pressure for things to be just-so and, interestingly, Nigel liked it kept very tidy too. He encouraged changes to the outside of the garden – removing the piggery and garage to the west of the Priest’s House – to make the place feel more ‘presentable’ as you arrived. In the garden, he loved the roses dead-headed almost every day, the paths swept and the yews all precisely clipped and tidy. The gardeners – all three generations of them since Vita’s day – are in agreement with him about this, but maybe it’s now time for this to change a little – to soften and relax.
In his book Tony Lord says, ‘to most garden visitors in the late fifties, Sissinghurst seemed more free and more romantic than ever. But professional horticulturalists who remember it from this time recall that the garden seemed to have reached the point at which excessive freedom and informality were about to give way to chaotic ugliness and, before long, oblivion.’ The whole point of the Sissinghurst garden is that it should and could meld a love and understanding of plants with a profoundly romantic sense of beauty. The two things are – and need to be – the same. An enchanting garden like Sissinghurst is, I would say, at its most beautiful at precisely the point where its informality is about to tip over into chaos. I am with Vita and her desire for sprezzatura – a studied nonchalance, a balance of formality of structure with informality of planting.
The aim of this book has been to paint that picture – of the garden as it was at its most perfect moment. ‘We have done our best,’ Vita wrote to Harold nine months before she died, ‘and made a garden where none was.’
Vita and Rollo, her Alsatian, in 1956. Her writing room on the first floor of the Tower is behind her.
SOURCES
Vita’s gardening boots on a chair in the Brew House, 1962.
VITA SACKVILLE-WEST:
In Your Garden (Michael Joseph), 1951
In Your Garden Again (Michael Joseph), 1953
More for Your Garden (Michael Joseph), 1955
Even More for Your Garden (Michael Joseph), 1958
Some Flowers (Cobden-Sanderson), 1937
Country Notes (Michael Joseph), 1939
Royal Horticultural Journal, 1953
Country Life, 28 August, 4 and 11 Sept 1942
Graham Stewart Thomas, The Old Shrub Roses, 1955. Foreword by Vita
HAROLD NICOLSON:
Diary 27 September 1933
Letter to Vita, August 1940
OTHER SOURCES:
Jane Brown, Vita’s Other World: A Gardening Biography of Vita Sackville-West (Penguin), 1987
Edward Bunyard, Old Garden Roses (Graham Thomas)
Peter Coates, Great Gardens of the World (Weidenfeld & Nicolson), 1963. Introduction by Harold Nicolson
Tony Lord, Gardening at Sissinghurst (Frances Lincoln), 1995
William Robinson, The English Flower Garden (Bloomsbury Gardening Classics), 1998
William Robinson, The Wild Garden (Timber Press), 2010
Anne Scott-James, Sissinghurst: The Making of a Garden (Michael Joseph), 1975
PICTURE CREDITS
here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here: © Adam Nicolson.
here: © Linda Clifford.
here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here: © Jonathan Buckley.
here: © Getty Images.
here: Taken by Bryan & Norman Westwood for Vita’s Country Notes.
here, here: © Vita Sackville West.
here, here, here, here, here: © Edwin Smith/RIBA Library Photographs Collection.
here, here, here, here: © Edwin Smith.
here: © Country Life.
here: © Edwin Smith from Sissinghurst, The Making of a Garden (Michael Joseph).
here, here, here, here, here: © A. E. Henson.
here: © Edwin Smith, from In Your Garden (Oxenwood Press Ltd).
here: © Valerie Finnis/RHS Lindley Library.
COLOUR PICTURE CAPTIONS
PLATE SECTION 1
Lady With a Red Hat by William Strang, 1918. (© William Strang (1859–1921). / Art Gallery and Museum, Kelvingrove, Glasgow, Scotland / © Culture and Sport Glasgow (Museums) / The Bridgeman Art Library)
A view from the top of the Tower in June, looking over the Purple Border and out to the farm beyond. (Jonathan Buckley)
A view from the top of the Tower in June, looking over the Purple Border and out to the farm beyond. (Jonathan Buckley)
The yew Rondel and Rose Garden, just coming into flower, seen from the attic room in the south wing. (Stephen Orr)
The yew Rondel and Rose Garden, just coming into flower, seen from the attic room in the south wing. (Stephen Orr)
The Spring Garden in April, still planted much as Harold designed it in the 1930s. (Jonathan Buckley)
The Spring Garden in April, still planted much as Harold designed it in the 1930s. (Jonathan Buckley)
The Sissinghurst Castle Rose – ‘Rose des Maures’. (Jonathan Buckley)
PLATE SECTION 2
Harold’s Yew walk – the backbone of the garden at Sissinghurst, planted soon after they arrived. (Stephen Orr)
Looking through the Rose Garden towards the Yew Walk and the Tower at dawn. (Stephen Orr)
Looking through the Rose Garden towards the Yew Walk and the Tower at dawn. (Stephen Orr)
The Bacchante statue at the top of the Lime Walk, in late May, with the pleached limes in full leaf. (Stephen Orr)
The Bacchante statue at the top of the Lime Walk, in late May, with the pleached limes in full leaf. (Stephen Orr)
The Nuttery, planted around 1900, long before Vita and Harold arrived. Much later, Graham Stewart Thomas worked with head gardeners Pam and Sybille to design the tapestry of spring flowers that carpets the Nuttery floor. (Jonathan Buckley)
The Nuttery, planted around 1900, long before Vita and Harold arrived. Much later, Graham Stewart Thomas worked with head gardeners Pam and Sybille to design the tapestry of spring flowers that carpets the Nuttery floor. (Jonathan Buckley)
A view from the Tower over the White Garden, in mid-June, with Rosa mulliganii in full flower. (Jonathan Buckley)
PLATE SECTION 3
The Rose Garden coming into full flower in early June. (Jonathan Buckley)
The Irish sentinel yews, in the Cottage Garden at dawn, in late May. (Stephen Orr)
The Irish sentinel yews, in the Cottage Garden at dawn, in late May. (Stephen Orr)
The Purple Border in June with many of Vita’s favourites – Rosa moyesii, Geranium psilostemon and Clematis durandii – in flower. (Jonathan Buckley)
The White Garden with Rosa ‘Iceberg’ billowing out of the formal b
ox parterre. (Jonathan Buckley)
The moat wall with corydalis and perennial wallflower, Erysimum ‘Bowles Mauve’, frothing from below to meet the white wisteria Vita planted above it. (Jonathan Buckley)
The moat wall with corydalis and perennial wallflower, Erysimum ‘Bowles Mauve’, frothing from below to meet the white wisteria Vita planted above it. (Jonathan Buckley)
A cobalt blue vase filled with spring blossom and euphorbias on the lapis lazuli table in the Big Room. Arrangement by Sarah Raven. Photograph by Pia Tryde. (Courtesy of Frances Lincoln publishers)
INDEX OF PLANTS, SHRUBS AND TREES
The index that appeared in the print version of this title does not match the pages in your eBook. Please use the search function on your eReading device to search for terms of interest. For your reference, the terms that appear in the print index are listed below.
abelia
A. triflora
abutilon
A. megapotamicum
acacia (Robinia)
R. hispida (rose acacia)
R. kelseyi
R. pseudoacacia (false acacia)
Acacia dealbata (mimosa)
acaena
A. Buchananii
A. microphylla
Acidenthera murieliae
aconites (Eranthis)
E. hyemalis (winter aconite)
E. tubergenii
actinidia
A. kolomikta
agapanthus
akebia
A. quinata
alder
allium
A. albo-pilosum
A. azureum
A. christophii
A. cyaneum
A. hollandicum
A. rosenbachianum
A. schubertii
‘Purple Sensation’
almonds
Alpine forget-me-not (Myosotis rupicola)
Alpine poppy
alstroemeria
Ligtu Hybrids
A. aurantiaca
A. haemantha
‘Elvira’
‘Friendship’
alyssum ‘Violet Queen’
Amaryllidaceae
amaryllis
A. belladonna (belladonna lily)
Ampelopsis heterophylla (porcelain berry vine)
anemone
A. alleni
A. apennina
A. blanda
A. coronarias (poppy anemone)
A. fulgens
A. nemerosa
A. pulsatilla
A. robinsoniana
‘The Bride’
‘Cristina’
‘de Caen’
‘Hollandia’
‘Mr Fokker’
‘St Bavo’
‘St Brigid’
‘Sylphide’
apple trees
Arbutus unedo (strawberry tree)
arcotis
‘Mahogany’
‘Flame’
Arenaria balearica
argyranthemums
Armeria caespitosa (little thrift)
artemisia
ash
aster
A. amellus
aubretia
auricula
A. farina
‘Argus’
autumn-flowering cherry, see Prunus subhirtella ‘Autumnalis’
azalea
azara
A. microphylla
A. petiolaris
balsam poplar (Populus)
P. balsamifera
P. candicans
P. trichocarpa
barberry
bay
beech
begonia
belladonna lily, see Amaryllis belladonna
bells of Ireland (Moluccella laevis)
berberis
B. thunbergii
bignonia, see campsis
billbergia
B. nutans
B. zebrina
birch
Black-eyed Susan (Thunbergia alata)
bladder sennas, see coluteas
bluebells
bouvardia
B. angustifolia
B. humboldtii
B. jasminiflora
B. longiflora
B. triphylla
‘Bridal Wealth’
box
buttercups
calceolaria
calicarpa
Californian poppy
camellias
‘Alba Simplex’
‘Donation’
campsis (bignonia)
C. grandiflora
C. radicans
‘Mme Galen’
Canterbury bell
Caprifoliaceae
Cardiocrinum giganteum (giant Himalayan lily)
carnations
‘Chabaud’
‘Compact Dwarf’
‘Enfant de Nice’
ceanothus
cedar
celastrus
C. orbiculatus
Chaenomeles
cherry
autumn-flowering, see Prunus subhirtella autumnali
Japanese
Morello
chestnut
Chinese bell-flower (Platycodon grandiflorum)
chrysanthemums
Korean varieties
‘Crimson Bride’
‘Lilac Time’
‘Primrose Day’
‘Red Letter Day’
‘Wedding Day’
cistus
Clematis
late-flowering viticellas
C. alpina
C. flammula
C. jackmanii
C. montana
‘Perle d’Azur’
Cobaea pringlei
Cobaea scandens (cups-and-saucers)
cobnuts
columbines
coluteas
C. arborescens
C. media
corylopsis
C. pauciflora
C. spicata
coronilla
C. emerus
C. glauca
corydalis
cotoneaster
C. rugosa henryii
cotton-lavender
Cotula squalida
crab apples
crinums
crocus
C. ancyrensis
C. chrysanthus
C. sieberi
C. susianus
C. suterianus
C. tomasinianus
‘A. Bowles’
‘Advance’
‘Imperati’
‘Jamie’
‘Moonlight’
‘P. Bowles’
‘Snow Bunting’
‘Spring Beauty’
‘Warley White’
cyclamen
C. balearicum
C. coum
C. europaeum
C. ibericum
C. neapolitanum
C. persica (Persian cyclamen)
C. repandum
Cyrtanthus elatus (Scarborough lily
Cytisus battandieri
dahlias
daisies
‘Bellis Dresden China’
see also Felicia; Gerbera jamesonii
daphne
D. bholua
D. collina
D. retusa
D. tangutica
delphinium
‘Black Knight’
deutzia
D. gracilis rosea
D. pulchra
D. scabra ‘Pride of Rochester’
Dictamnus fraxinella (burning bush, or dittany)
dill (Anethum graveolens)
dipelta
D. floribunda
dogwood
eglantine
eremurus (foxtail lily)
E. robustus
ericaceae
Erinus alpinus
euonymus
euphorbia
E. marginata (snow-on-the-mountain)
&
nbsp; felicia
F. amelloides (blue daisy)
F. bergeriana (kingfisher daisy)
figs
filberts
forget-me-nots
foxgloves
fritillaries (Fritillaria)
F. imperialis (Crown Imperial)
F. meleagris (meadow or snakeshead fritillary)
fuchsia
F. gracilis
F. magellanica riccartonii
F. magellanica thompsonii
‘Margaret’
‘Mme Cornelissen’
‘Mrs Popple’
gardenias
Garrya elliptica
gazania
gentians (Gentiana)
G. sino-ornata
geraniums
ivy-leaved
gerbera
G. jamesonii (Transvaal daisy)
‘Chateau’
gladioli
Acidanthera (G. callianthus)
G. colvillei ‘The Bride’
G. papilio (butterfly gladiolus)
G. primulinus
grape hyacinths (Muscari azureus)
gypsophila
G. fratensis
halesia
H. carolina
H. monticola
hamamelis (witch hazel)
H. japonica
H. mollis
H. vernalis
H. virginiana
‘Aphrodite’
‘Aurora’
‘Dishi’
hawthorn
hazel
Helichrysum
hellebore (Helleborus)
H. argutifolius (Corsican hellebore)
H. niger (Christmas rose)
H. orientalis (Lenten rose)
Hermodactylus tuberosa (widow iris)
hibiscus
H. syriacus
hoheria
H. lyallii
holly
hollyhocks
honeysuckle
hops
hornbeam
Humea elegans (incense plant)
hyacinths
Roman
see also grape hyacinths
hydrangea
H. aspera
H. aspera ‘Kawakamü’
H. hortensis
H. paniculata
H. paniculata ‘Limelight’
H. paniculata grandiflora
H. paniculata sargentii