Creating Sissinghurst

The garden at Sissinghurst Castle is one of the most iconic gardens in England. It was created by the poet and writer Vita Sackville-West and her husband the author and diplomat Harold Nicholson.

Harold worked in the diplomatic service in Constantinople and the first garden the young couple had there inspired Vita to write the poem ‘We had a Garden on a Hill’.

Returning to England the couple bought their first home Long Barn, several miles away from Knole in 1915. Vita’s mother introduced her to Gertrude Jekyll and the couple developed a vision of English manor house gardening at Long Barn that acted as their gardening apprenticeship.

When Vita Sackville-West and Harold purchased Sissinghurst in early 1930 it had been run as a traditional farm since 1855. The Tudor buildings were used to house farm workers and the land was utilised for growing vegetables for the workers and the farm grew cereal crops, fruit and hops.

Harold Nicolson largely undertook the design of the garden at Sissinghurst and Vita the planting.

The landscape is designed as a series of "garden rooms", each with a different character of colour or theme, the enclosures being high clipped hedges or brickwork walls.

The rooms and their doors are arranged to offer glimpses into other parts of the garden.

The collection of rose varieties at Sissinghurst is extraordinary. Vita focused her collection on species roses and old garden varieties and enlisted the help of rose expert Graham Stuart Thomas to acquire and grow rare examples.

Vita said that one should "discard the idea that roses must be limited to certain accepted and accustomed colours, and to welcome the less familiar purples and lilacs, and the striped, flaked, mottled variations which recall the old Dutch flower-paintings; to approach them, in fact, with open and unprejudiced eyes, and also with a nose that esteems the true scent of a rose warmed by the sun."

The garden continued to grow and evolve. In the 1950s when roses outgrew their home in an area of the garden they were transferred to the Rose Garden. Harold set about replanning the space. The couple loved the bold appearance of white gladioli, white irises, white pompom dahlias and the white Japanese anemones and developed the White Garden.

A sea of polyanthus were planted in the Nuttery to create a dazzling display of seasonal colour, utilising a single plant.

Nicolson described it as "the loveliest planting scheme in the whole world".

In 1955, in recognition of her achievement at Sissinghurst she was awarded the Royal Horticultural Society's Veitch Medal.