Climbers such as ‘Paul’s Lemon Pillar’ are a bit more reluctant to comply with this treatment than ramblers like ‘Albertine’ and the Rosa mulliganii on the frame in the centre of the White Garden, which are very bendy and easy to train.
MORE OF VITA’S FAVOURITE SUMMER WALL SHRUBS AND CLIMBERS
One of the most significant and large-scale wall plants at Sissinghurst is Magnolia grandiflora with its vast, canoe-shaped leaves all year round, their copper backs just glimpsed as they flicker in the wind. Vita put in two soon after their arrival – one at the entrance and one in the Top Courtyard – and unusually for magnolias, they flower intermittently right through the summer.
‘The flowers … look like great white pigeons settling among dark leaves,’ she noted in 1950. ‘This is an excellent plant for covering an ugly wall-space, being evergreen and fairly rapid of growth. It is not always easy to know what to put against a new red-brick wall; pinks and reds are apt to swear, and to intensify the already-too-hot colour; but the cool green of the magnolia’s glossy leaves and the utter purity of its bloom make it a safe thing to put against any background, however trying. Besides, the flower in itself is of such splendid beauty. I have just been looking into the heart of one. The texture of the petals is of a dense cream; they should not be called white; they are ivory, if you can imagine ivory and cream stirred into a thick paste, with all the softness and smoothness of youthful human flesh; and the scent, reminiscent of lemon, was overpowering.
Magnolia grandiflora.
‘There is a theory that magnolias do best under the protection of a north or west wall, and this is true of the spring-flowering kinds, which are only too liable to damage from morning sunshine after a frosty night, when you may come out after breakfast to find nothing but a lamentable tatter of brown suede; but grandiflora, flowering in July and August, needs no such consideration. In fact, it seems to do better on a sunny exposure, judging by the two plants I have in my garden. I tried an experiment, as usual. One of them is against a shady west wall, and never carries more than half a dozen buds; the other, on a glaring southeast wall, normally carries twenty to thirty. The reason, clearly, is that the summer sun is necessary to ripen the wood on which the flowers will be borne. [Vita’s two original plants are still here at Sissinghurst, one on the west wall of the entrance courtyard, one on a south-facing wall on the top lawn, and the difference in flowering is still apparent.] What they don’t like is drought when they are young, i.e. before their roots have had time to go far in search of moisture; but as they will quickly indicate their disapproval by beginning to drop their yellowing leaves, you can be on your guard with a can of water, or several cans, from the rain-water butt.
‘Goliath is the best variety. Wires should be stretched along the wall on vine-eyes for convenience of future tying. This will save a lot of trouble in the long run, for the magnolia should eventually fill a space at least twenty feet wide by twenty feet high or more, reaching right up to the eaves of the house. The time may come when you reach out of your bedroom window to pick a great ghostly flower in the summer moonlight, and then you will be sorry if you find it has broken away from the wall and is fluttering on a loose branch, a half-captive pigeon trying desperately to escape.’
‘Goliath’ is excellent for a garden on the Sissinghurst scale, as it tends to be very broad-spreading, while there is another cultivar, ‘Harold Poole’, which is smaller in all its parts and so would fit in a smaller garden. ‘Samuel Sommer’ has the largest flowers of all, which can be over a foot across, yet it’s not a massive grower and is said to be particularly hardy. It’s ideal for those with smaller gardens.
There were relatively few clematis at Sissinghurst until Pam and Sybille arrived in 1959. Sybille remembers going with Vita to Christopher Lloyd’s garden and nursery at Great Dixter in East Sussex to help her select a few. They gradually put in more and more, favouring particularly the late-flowering viticellas, which were resistant to the destructive fungus, clematis wilt.
‘However popular, however ubiquitous, the clematis must remain among the best hardy climbers in our gardens,’ Vita writes. ‘Consider first their beauty, which may be either flamboyant or delicate. Consider their long flowering period, from April till November. Consider also that they are easy to grow; do not object to lime in the soil; are readily propagated, especially by layering; are very attractive even when not in flower, with their silky-silvery seed heads, which always remind me of Yorkshire terriers curled into a ball; offer an immense variety both of species and hybrids; and may be used in many different ways, for growing over sheds, fences, pergolas, hedges, old trees, or up the walls of houses. The perfect climber? Almost, but there are two snags which worry most people.
‘There is the problem of pruning. This, I admit, is complicated if you want to go into details, but as a rough working rule it is safe to say that those kinds which flower in the spring and early summer need pruning just after they have flowered, whereas the later flowering kinds (i.e., those that flower on the shoots they have made during the current season) should be pruned in the early spring.
‘The second worry is wilt. You may prefer to call it Ascochyta Clematidina, but the result is the same, that your most promising plant will suddenly, without the slightest warning, be discovered hanging like miserable wet string. The cause is known to be a fungus, but the cure, which would be more useful to know, is unknown. The only comfort is that the plant will probably shoot up again from the root; you should, of course, cut the collapsed strands down to the ground to prevent any spread of the disease. It is important, also, to obtain plants on their own roots, for they are far less liable to attack … Slugs, caterpillars, mice, and rabbits are all fond of young clematis, but that is just one of the normal troubles of gardening. Wilt is the real speciality of the clematis.
‘There is much more to be said about this beautiful plant but space only to say that it likes shade at its roots, and don’t let it get too dry.’
Clematis ‘Perle d’Azur’ on the Powys wall.
The clematis ‘Perle d’Azur’ is one of the iconic plants of Sissinghurst, growing on the semicircular wall in the Rose Garden. This was planted after Vita’s day, by Pam and Sybille. It forms a majestic mauve backcloth to the Rose Garden for many weeks in late summer. This is no mean feat – it is very elaborately trained to achieve such drama. The wall is covered with six-inch netting above the clematis. The plant is cut back hard in late autumn and every ten days in May and June, then carefully spread out over the wall as it grows, with new growth tied in as you might do for your tomatoes or sweet peas. The gardeners use paper-covered wire twists so as to be more gentle to the stems, and attach the new stems to the wire behind with these.
There have also been lots of clematis on the wall along the back of the Purple Border, six or seven merging into a great curtain of crimson and purple, varieties chosen to overlap but flower in succession to give the maximum weeks of interest to this high-summer border. There is an ingenious system of wiring that goes over the top of the wall, bridging one side and the other with sheep netting. When the clematis reaches the top, rather than being blown around like a huge sail and then collapsing back on itself, it clings to the wire, which then carries it from the Top Courtyard side into the garden known as Delos.
SUMMER AND AUTUMN
Vita was also very fond of four other slightly tender wall plants, which added a bit of exoticism to her walls. The first was the shrub Abutilon megapotamicum, which she picked as one of her favourite plants in her short book, Some Flowers, published in 1937. She decribes it at length:
‘This curious Brazilian with the formidable name is usually offered as a half-hardy or greenhouse plant, but experience shows that it will withstand as many degrees of frost as it is likely to meet with in the southern counties. It is well worth trying against a south wall, for apart from the unusual character of its flowers it has several points to recommend it. For one thing it occupies but little space, seldom growing more
than four feet high, so that even if you should happen to lose it you will not be left with a big blank gap. For another, it has the convenient habit of layering itself of its own accord, so that by merely separating the rooted layers and putting them into the safety of a cold frame, you need never be without a supply of substitutes. For another, it is apt to flower at times when you least expect it, which always provides an amusing surprise …
Abutilon megapotamicum.
‘It is a thing to train up against a sunny south wall, and if you should happen to have a whitewashed wall or even a wall of grey stone, it will show up to special advantage against it … It is on the tender side, not liking too many degrees of frost, so should be covered over in winter …
‘You should … grow it where you are constantly likely to pass and can glance at it daily to see what it is doing. It is not one of those showy climbers which you can see from the other side of the garden, but requires to be looked at as closely as though you were short-sighted. You can only do so in the open, for if you cut it to bring into the house it will be dead within the hour, which is unsatisfactory both for it and for you. But sitting on the grass at the foot of the wall where it grows, you can stare up into the queer hanging bells and forget what the people round you are saying. It is not an easy flower to describe – no flower is, but the Abutilon is particularly difficult. In despair I turned up its botanically official description: “Ls. lanc, 3, toothed. Fls. 1½, sepals red, petals yellow, stamens long and drooping (like a fuchsia)”.
‘Now in the whole of that laconic though comprehensive specification there were only three words which could help me at all: like a fuchsia. Of course I had thought of that already; anybody would. The flower of the Abutilon is like a fuchsia, both in size and in shape, though not in colour. But it is really a ballet dancer, something out of Prince Igor. “Sepals red, petals yellow” is translated for me into a tight-fitting red bodice with a yellow petticoat springing out below it in flares, a neat little figure, rotating on the point of the stamens as on the point of the toes. One should, in fact, be able to spin it like a top.’ This abutilon has recently been planted in a very prominent position to cover the front of the South Cottage, sharing the south-facing wall there with Rosa ‘Madame Alfred Carrière’.
Her next recommendation is for campsis (known then as bignonia), a very luscious plant with large, deep burnt-orange trumpet flowers which you see much more commonly on the Continent than in gardens here. This may get cut to the ground in a hard winter, but usually re-emerges just as well the following spring and can romp its way up over the top of a barn roof in no time:
‘They are so showy and so decorative … Their big orange-red trumpets make a noise like a brass band in the summer garden. They are things with a rather complicated botanical history, often changing their names. Bignonia grandiflora is now known as Campsis grandiflora (it went through a phase of calling itself Tecoma) and Bignonia radicans is now Campsis radicans. The best variety of it is Mme Galen; and as it has rather smaller flowers than grandiflora, a friend of mine calls it Little-nonia, a poor joke that will not appeal to serious gardeners, but may be helpful to the amateurs who wish to remember the difference.
‘They all want a sunny wall, and should be pruned back like a vine, that is, cut right hard back to a second “eye” or bud, during the dormant season between November and January. Like a vine, again, they will strike from cuttings taken at an eye and pushed firmly into sandy soil.’ Campsis was, and still is, planted on the moat wall where it tumbles from the orchard side, the flowers almost echoing the colour of the brighter bricks.
Cobaea scandens on the Erechtheum.
Vita also enjoyed the exotic-looking cup-and-saucer plant, Cobaea scandens, and planted this on the east-facing wall of the south range in the Top Courtyard and on the Erechtheum, where it is still planted every year today. It reaches not eight to ten foot high, as Vita suggests below, but thirty, right up to our daughter Molly’s bathroom window on the second floor.
Vita tells her readers: ‘An interesting and unusual plant which should find a place is Cobaea scandens, which sounds more attractive under its English name of cups-and-saucers. This is a climber, and an exceedingly rapid one, for it will scramble eight to ten feet high in the course of a single summer. Unfortunately it must be regarded as an annual in most parts of this country, and a half-hardy annual at that, for although it might be possible with some protection to coax it through a mild winter, it is far better to renew it every year from seed sown under glass in February or March. Pricked off into small pots in the same way as you would do for tomatoes, it can then be gradually hardened off and planted out towards the end of May. In the very mild counties it would probably survive as a perennial.
‘It likes a rich, light soil, plenty of water while it is growing, and a sunny aspect. The ideal place for it is a trellis nailed against a wall, or a position at the foot of a hedge, when people will be much puzzled as to what kind of a hedge this can be, bearing such curious short-stemmed flowers, like a Canterbury Bell with tendrils. Unlike the Canterbury Bell, however, the flowers amuse themselves by changing their colour. They start coming out as a creamy white; then they turn apple-green, then they develop a slight mauve blush, and end up a deep purple. A bowl of the mixture, in its three stages, is a pretty sight, and may be picked right up to the end of October.’ I find these last a few more days in water if you sear the stem ends (see here).
Similar in feel to the cup-and-saucer plant and also useful for picking and floating in a shallow bowl for a table, Vita liked the Passion flower, Passiflora caerulea, ‘which is hardier than sometimes supposed, springing up from its roots again yearly, even if it has been cut down to the ground by frost and has apparently given up all attempt to live. Its strangely constructed flowers are not very effective at a distance, but marvellous to look into, with the nails and the crown of thorns from which it derives its name. It should be grown against a warm wall, though even in so favoured a situation I fear it is unlikely to produce its orange fruits in this country.’ Later, she added: ‘I must go back on this remark. Plants on two cottages near where I live, in Kent, produce a truly heavy crop of fruits. I could not think what they were till I stopped to investigate. The curious thing is that both plants are facing due east, and can scarcely receive any sun at all.’
And a last word: ‘There is a white variety called Constance Elliott. I prefer the pale blue one myself; but each to his own taste.’
VITA’S TOP SHRUBS AND CLIMBERS
FOR A SOUTH WALL
Abutilon megapotamicum
Indigoferas
Solanum crispum var. autumnalis, ‘so useful in August – a trifle tender, perhaps, wanting a warm south wall’
Solanum jasminoides, white, ‘another August flowerer, a most graceful climber, also a trifle tender but well worth trying in southern counties’
Vine ‘Royal Muscadine’
FOR A NORTH WALL
Clematis flammula
Garrya elliptica
Kerria japonica
Morello cherry
Winter jasmine
FOR A NORTH OR WEST WALL
Camellias
Magnolias
Osmanthus
Wisteria
FOR AN EAST WALL
Hardier ceanothus
Japonica (ornamental quince)
COVER THE TREES
When I ask my mother how Vita influenced my parents’ garden most of all, she remembers Vita’s passion for growing climbers and particular roses up into trees. She still has several roses grown like that in their garden in the village of Shepreth, just outside Cambridge, a garden mainly planted in the late 1950s, when through her Observer columns Vita’s influence was most felt. There is ‘Madame Alfred Carrière’ up a Bramley apple tree, ‘Albéric Barbier’ up a rhus, ‘Crimson Conquest’ up a white-flowered lilac and ‘Wickwar’ up a euonymus by the house.
Vita liked to decorate the trees, and is well known for using the apple and
pear trees in the Sissinghurst Orchard and the almonds in the centre of the new White Garden as climbing frames for clematis and roses, sometimes at the cost of the tree beneath the rampant canopy. The soft pink rose ‘Flora’ is the one remaining, clambering right to the top of a soft prunus outside the door of the Priest’s House. She recommends ivy and vines too – of the right varieties – as well as Clematis montana and the tricolour-leaved actinidia (see also here):
‘We do not make nearly enough use of the upper storeys. The ground floor is just the ground, the good flat earth we cram with all the plants we want to grow. We also grow some climbers, which reach to the first-floor windows, and we may grow some other climbers over a pergola, but our inventiveness usually stops short at that. What we tend to forget is that nature provides some far higher reaches into which we can shoot long festoons whose beauty gains from the transparency of dangling in mid-air. What I mean, briefly, is things in trees …
‘There is no need to stick to ivy. The gadding vine will do as well. The enormous shield-shaped leaves of Vitis coignetiae, turning a deep pink in autumn, amaze us with their rich cornelian in the upper air, exquisitely veined and rosy as the pricked ears of an Alsatian dog. Then, if you prefer June–July colour to October colour, there is that curious vigorous climber, Actinidia kolomikta, which starts off with a wholly green leaf, then develops white streaks and a pink tip, and puzzles people who mistake its colouring habits for some new form of disease. Cats like it: and so do I, although I don’t like cats.’
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