Now I don’t want you to think that Sissinghurst is an herbaceous border style such as Barnsley House, Great Dixter, or Crathes Garden. Hidcote has similarities such as ‘garden rooms’, however Sissinghurst is quite unique. Tintinhull House another National Trust property was previously the home of Phyllis Reiss who lived there from 1933 to 1961. Penelope Hobhouse, writer and garden designer, is now the tenant, she is quoted to have said about Sissinghurst,

“ A Hidcote in miniature; two acres instead of ten,’ she described ‘I should wish my ideal garden to assume the functions of a sculpture gallery, with plants as statues and stonework contributing architectural shape and form. At the same time the whole or each part of the garden should have … a strong sense of composition, attained by skilful use of harmony and contrast between shapes and plants, and between colours and textures of leaves and flowers... The separate and defined areas within the whole must be held together by planting schemes which entice the visitor on…”

A Photographic Garden History (Phillips and Foy 1997; 213)
Sissinghurst is situated in the apple orchards and hop landscape of Kent in South East England. A veritable garden of England because of its gentler climate and softly hilled countryside. Before I introduce you to the background and influences of its designers I would like to explain my choice of subject. Brought up in the large seaside town of Brighton on the south coast, which is brusque, windy and exposed, I fell in love with the countryside. As soon as I was a car owner there was the opportunity to explore. I discovered Nymens Gardens the plant collector’s garden made by the Countess of Rosse’s father and grand-father, Wakehurst the Kew of the south with its beautiful trees, the moat and romantic area of Robertsbridge, William Robinson’s garden at Gravetye Manor Hotel and Three Star restaurant owned for many years by Peter Herbert, Edwin Lutyens architecture and influences in the region, one of Capability Brown’s masterpieces Sheffield Park, Scotney Castle another romantic garden and then Sissinghurst which I went back to time and again. At the age of twenty it was a foregone conclusion that I was passionate about gardening and all things related. Sissinghurst was the influence that tipped me over the edge.

Vita Sackville-West was born at Knole in Kent an only child who did not particularly get on with her mother and whose father died when she was quite young. She was an unusual woman of that time, even having an affair with Virginia Wolff the writer, who committed suicide. Growing up between the world wars in the social whirl of London, its Bloomsbury set and the Mitfords, Vita was an original thinker, a writer and a poet, who was used to comfort and wealth. She married Harold Nicolson a diplomat and politician and they were together for over forty years. She had two sons Ben and Nigel. Vita and Harold lived in Persia and the Mediterranean region during the earlier days of their marriage, both hard working, with many other passions, but the one that linked them intrinsically was gardening. Harold Nicolson had a love of architectural classicism, a sense of symmetry and form, while Vita’s style was romantic. She loved colour and texture, and together with her knowledge of plants they made a formidable team. Moving back to England they lived at Long Barn two miles from Knole.

Long Barn was the precursor to Sissinghurst where they experimented with styles of planting, building up their skills. They created a terraced garden, including tennis courts where they socialized, holding weekend house parties and inviting the intelligentsia of the time. Their lifestyle was about to change and become much more reclusive. Threatened by encroachment on the surrounding fields they decided to move home. So in the spring of 1930 they purchased Sissinghurst Castle ruin and the 350 acres of Castle Farm for £13,375. Compared to the luxury they could have purchased for the same sum, this was a derelict patch.

Vita wanted the garden to have ‘naturalness’ which is only achieved by relentless care, profusion with wildness, chaos and order, old mixed with new, a controlled pleasure in plants. ‘Naturalness’ was a style that Major Lawrence Johnston appreciated, as did William Robinson, which initiated quite a debate in the gardening world a few years earlier, it was such a change from formal designs. Sissinghurst offers an experience of unfolding mysteries as you walk through, giving you many beautiful choices as to which way to go. All this linked together with the surroundings and countryside. Everything is in abundance, with great drifts of the same plant and swathes of the same colour broken up by complimentary shades. Climbers covering the walls, growing through hedges, richly interplanted and scent from old-fashioned roses.

Harold on the other hand did all the surveying and planning, sorted the structure and the bare bones of the garden. He loved the measuring side the planning and the precision. It has a slight asymmetrical layout because of the 16 th century wall. This was a challenge and was cleverly disguised in his plan. Vita and Harold had many discussions about the garden, heated debates occasionally. Even when Harold was away Vita would write to him letting him know what ideas she had and asking him for his comments.

Their garden attracted much a regular visitor being Vicomte de Noailles, her great French contemporary. He would try all the exotic vegetables from her cottager’s garden.

Both Vita and Harold did radio broadcasts imparting their knowledge to an increasing gardening public. Vita’s articles were regularly published in gardening journals. She started writing weekly for The Observer newspaper in 1946 continuing for fourteen years. Her writings have been an invaluable inspiration for gardeners.

Contents of the Garden
Rose Garden;
Lime Walk;
Cottage Garden;
Moat Walk;
The Nuttery;
Herb Garden;
The Orchard;
Yew Walk;
White Garden;
Tower Lawn.

The Rose Garden comprises of the Rondel, which is a circular clipped yew hedge, one of Harold’s clever design plans. He created a symmetrical formal shape that is pleasing to the eye, although the land is in fact a really odd shape. The shape represents the oast houses in the surrounding countryside and was inspired by the Italian style of gardens. The hedge used to be holly but this changed when so many gardeners (twenty five per cent is the statistic) were lost in the First World War. The holly had to be clipped with secateurs to keep its shape and yew is obviously easier to maintain. Even the yew was in a topiary style but was changed to a hedge after the Second World War. It’s a wonder that Levens Hall, the wonderful topiary garden in Cumbria, has survived. In between the box hedges, old wall and yew are old scented roses, some of historical significance due to their rarity. Constance Spry supplied some of the roses. The shrub roses at Sissinghurst are one of the finest collections in the world. The closest thing to an herbaceous border exists in the Rose Garden which is the only Gertrude Jekyll influence, and Edwin Lutyens designed the wave-backed seat located at one end of the pathway.

Harold had the Lime Walk as his personal garden, a brand new area where all the planting ideas were his alone. Two rows of pleached limes with a path down the middle, a formal look, under planted with an array of spring bulbs and flowers, with a different theme between each tree. Harold kept meticulous notes of what flowered, and when, and what was successful.

The Cottage Garden was jointly theirs; both weeded and maintained it, for it was very personal to them. Facing the sun all day it contained all the colours of the sunset with South Cottage being their peaceful hideaway retreat, away from the main house. Each week Vita made Harold ‘tussie-mussies’. Researched by the gardener Margery Fish, these were small bunches of flowers. In the 1930’s the poorer people were given them, in this case Harold, as he was considered poorer in Vita’s eyes for having to spend so much time in London. (away from ‘Sissingbags’ as she affectionately called it in her daily letters to him). They could be spring mixtures or later in the year roses, fern and lavender.

The Herb Garden is divided into twenty-four beds with over one hundred varieties. Formally laid out with a centrepiece, which is a large, shallow bowl full of sedum sempivirens. The bowl sits between four lion statues collected on their travels. Vita loved to make pot pourris from the herbs.

Moat Walk is a grass path leading to the statue of Dionysus and to the remaining old moat, with water on the north and east sides. Flanked by an old wall, the oldest surviving structure at Sissinghurst. It was discovered under rubble and brambles in 1930. It is shrouded in a magnificent Wisteria floribunda ‘alba’ with a bank of azaleas (Vita was not fond of rhododendrons) on the right hand side. Splendid in May. The statue is viewed from both the Tower and the Moat Walk, a clever enticement, encouraging you to explore different parts of the garden.

The Nuttery which has old existing hazel trees, previously producing Kent cobnuts, would have been used for making wattle hurdles and hoops for cider barrels. These trees are a legacy of the Kent countryside. Gertrude Jekyll had a Nuttery at Munstead Wood and was responsible for re-introducing primulas where she under planted her trees with them. As a child Vita visited her and remembered it. This inspired them to create a wild flower woodland garden with Trilium grandiflora, ferns and Omphalodes. It also includes many varieties of Primulae, Auriculae and Polyanthus.

The Orchard opens up into the space of a varied fruit orchard. Supplying just enough fruit for the household at the time, Vita planted musk roses to grow though the old trees. She also planted new trees, especially ones recommended by their friend and neighbour, the plant collector and explorer Captain ‘Cherry’ Collingwood Ingram, who lived at The Grange at Benenden. Today the ‘Great White Japanese Cherry’ Prunus ‘Tai Haku’ survives showing its white flowers in the spring and being under planted with narcissus, fritallarias, cowslips and wildflowers. In the autumn there are blue Gentiana and carmine cyclamen.

Yew Walk separates The Orchard from Tower Lawn and the Tower where Vita had her study. Dark green and very high as you might find in a maze, it cuts the length of the garden right across. Walking north and through a gap you enter the White Garden.

The White Garden famous because of its stark influence on our one colour gardening styles of today. White was a result of the Modernist Movement and was quite shocking at the time. Various perennials set in formal enclosures of box hedging and in the centre an iron arbour covered in the white Rosa mulliganii. A statue of the Virgin is near one of the hedges. Apparently one of the reasons for its close proximity to the house was that in the summer the white reflected in the moonlight. It has inspired many poets, painters, writers and photographers.

Tower Lawn contains small borders with plants that can take sunny dry sheltered spots. For example the purple border, its wall clothed in clematis in all shades of purple, pink and mauve, lavender, dahlias, wine red bergamot, Liatris spicata and delphiniums. Further along there are purple Salvia x superba, verbena, Eryngium x tripartitum and the small Iris ‘Sissinghurst’. Little touches like sinks filled with plants and alpines matching or picking up the shape and colour of the wall climbers surrounding the windows of the house were used.

Vita was passionate about Shakespeare and the flowers mentioned in his writings. This is apparent all over Sissinghurst, with the aristocrats being planted together with the paupers, creating a ‘naturalness’ of planting that is still popular today. She was also fascinated as to where some of these native flowers would self-seed themselves. Several flowers were revived by Vita helping to conserve them for future generations. Art, music and the great writers would have influenced Vita. Her courage with the use of colour mirrored that of the Impressionist’s Paintings. Monet demonstrated this very strongly in his garden at Giverny in France. The garden designers of today can be inspired by not only garden history but by all the Arts, moulding them into one, for us all to enjoy.

The negative aspects are just a few. People today would find it very difficult to have their garden designed by both a pre-eminent Plants Person and a skilled practical Garden Designer with such opposing view points, clashing and contrasting at each stage. Let alone the expense of having their garden styled over a period of years. Painstakingly working through their talent and emotion would be impossible for any of us to aspire, to so we can only be stimulated by what Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson have left us. Similarly there will never be another musical group like the Beatles. The fusion of the four made their music what it was. We appreciate the legacy they left us and modern musicians take what they can from it and use that to move forward. Sissinghurst also demands a lot of maintenance to keep it looking beautiful. Weeding is a virtual full time job. People generally do not have the time to spend or the money, to employ full time gardeners.

Designers can choose from man-made and natural products for hard landscaping to enable them to compliment existing structures, just as Harold did when he designed the pathways and walls at Sissinghurst. The use of statues encourages garden designers to use modern art forms as long as they are not gratuitous. Designers must always employ a reason to investigate a garden and to create mystery. Hard landscapes can be inspired by the views and vistas that Harold put into the plan. Height and vertical schemes could be used more, incorporating high hedges, enframements and covering walls with a multitude of plants. As well as attracting wildlife, this creates a secure place for the owner to sit or stroll and a sense of privacy.

As with the inspirational gardens of the Chelsea Flower Show, there are cutting edge ideas in planting that give the public courage to try something different. There is a clair voyee clipped in a circle out of one of the yew hedges allowing the onlooker a surreptitious view. Vita also created a chamomile seat as a resting place. She allowed climbers to go a ‘bit wild’ in their growth habit to give maximum impact by profusion and richness. It takes a lot of hard work and at least five years to achieve this look. Designers mix different plants together challenging what may be considered fashionable or traditional just as Vita did.

It is clear that the aspect of a site is very important especially as gardens are smaller and this awareness needs to be brought into designs more. To be flexible and use what is available. Water is an integral part of nature, and is reflected by the way Vita and Harold used their moat and lake as an essential part of the garden plan. I feel water should be utilised more, Vita’s lack of pretension is an attractive element and could be used more. A garden has to make the owner feel at ease when they walk around it, to be at one with nature, whilst at the same time it has to be functional. Owner’s memories can be included, as with the lovely use of urns, pots and wall plates. It is important that designers get to know their clients better and bring in more personal items, this helps to make each project more individual.

Conclusion

The discussion as to whether plants or the hard landscaping design make the garden is a perennial debate. This was recently highlighted by an article in The Garden Journal of the RHS as part of their bi-centenary celebrations, who asked the question

“Is there an inevitable conflict between designer and plantsman in garden making? Are great gardens all about design or the plants they contain, or are both of equal importance?”

Higgens, S. (January 2004) This house believes… The Garden Journal of the Royal Horticultural Society, 129(Part 1), p22-27.

I feel the combination between designer and plants person are of equal importance. Sissinghurst does this by its cohesion of these two parts. Organisation and control is fundamental in the design and the ‘organised chaos’ of the planting that is Sissinghurst Castle Garden, is so pleasing to the eye that it’s opulence makes you feel good. Its draws the visitor back again, to see it in another light, or another season, or from another angle, it has ‘charisma’. It is very hard to put your finger on what it is. It is a garden of brilliant design and attention to detail. I believe Sissinghurst is one of the most beautiful gardens in the world and stands the test of time. What do you think? I leave it with you…

Please telephone or email today to discuss your requirements or to arrange an appointment with us. We look forward to hearing from you.

Best regards
Catherine Nightingale Dip.G.D.

Nightingale Garden Design
enquiries@nightingalegardendesign.com