Sissinghurst

by Vita Sackville-West

  Vita habitually put flowers on Harold’s desk in South Cottage.

  For planting in March but picking from late spring onwards, these Anemone coronarias take ten to twelve weeks from planting to flower. Vita loved the luscious-coloured and textured so-called poppy anemones, with their velvety, open saucer flowers. You can buy these with the colours mixed – purple-blue, pink, red and white – but that tends to give you quite a few where the saturated purity of colour is mixed with a little white and becomes wishy-washy. Better are the single-coloured cultivars, the current ones being ‘Mr Fokker’ for the deep purple-blue, ‘Cristina’ for purple-crimson, ‘The Bride’ for white, ‘Hollandia’ for a luscious scarlet; and one of my favourites, ‘Sylphide’, for a brilliant pink, no white in its tone at all.

  These should be planted in March and April, Vita tells us, ‘at intervals for succession; in fact, the more you stagger the planting of anemone corms the longer succession you will get. Cheap to buy … I would advise you to get them from a reputable nurseryman rather than from a chain-store where the corms may have been hanging about for weeks, getting dried up and losing their vitality. They need no description; we all know those tight little eightpenny bunches which start arriving from Cornwall on to the street-barrows in January, and open in the most surprising way once they are released from the constriction of their elastic band and are put into water and last so long that we begin to think them immortal. They are the sorts known as Anemone St. Brigid and Anemone de Caen. There are more beautiful kinds of anemone, but these are the familiar ones.’

  Extending out from the coronarias, Vita wrote about the whole anemone group. She gives valuable advice as to how to make them grow well in your garden:

  ‘In the seventeenth century anemones were called by the charming name of Parsley Roses, because of their fringed and curly leaves.

  ‘Many people complain that they cannot get anemones to do well. I think this may be due to two or three causes. Planting the corms too deep is a very common reason for failure. One and a half to two inches is quite deep enough. Another mistake frequently made is to buy the large-size corms in preference to the smaller, in the very natural belief that top-sizes, known as Jumbos in the trade, will give finer flowers. The reverse is true. Avoid Jumbo.

  ‘It should also be remembered that most anemones like an alkaline soil, which should be good news for the lime dwellers. An exception, of course, is the woodland nemerosa and its varieties robinsoniana and alleni; but you have only to think of our other native, Anemone pulsatilla, to realize that it occurs in its natural state on the chalky Downs. I am not saying that anemones will thrive only in soil where lime is present; in my own garden, for instance, where the soil, thank God, is neutral, many of them sow themselves all over the place, even in the grass of an orchard; but I do suggest that if your anemones disappoint you might well consider giving them a top dressing of lime.

  ‘Another thing that amateur growers do not always realize is that anemones of the St. Brigid and de Caen strain will not persist for ever. One has to renew after two or three years, but as non-Jumbo corms cost [very little per thousand], they should be well within the purse of anybody who would like to share the thousand out among friends.

  ‘Anemone fulgens, on the other hand, the brilliant red wind-flower of Mediterranean coasts, may be left for years in the same place and indeed dislikes being dug up. I think the same would apply to its descendant, the St. Bavo anemone, which sows itself in cracks of pavement and comes up year after year in ever more varying colours. I often wonder why people don’t grow the St. Bavo. They don’t seem to know about it, and are surprised when they see it, with its subtle colour of petals with an electric-blue blotch at the base.’

  Although Vita didn’t do lots of forcing of leaves and flowers for inside, usually preferring them when they came naturally, she did pick and force the odd bucket of flowering currant for a large vase to cheer up the early spring:

  ‘The old flowering currant, Ribes sanguineum, is a familiar sight in cottage gardens, where it may sometimes be seen clipped into shape as a hedge, and a very dense, pretty hedge it makes, clothed at this time of year with a mass of pink flowers. A most reliable shrub, never taking a year off, and demanding the minimum of care or cultivation, it cannot lay claim to great distinction, and indeed some people despise the somewhat dingy pink of the individual flower; these people, with whom I find myself in agreement, should not be satisfied with the original type, introduced from the west of the United States in 1826, but should obtain its varieties splendens and King Edward VII, both far brighter in colour and just as accommodating in temperament.

  ‘I suppose that most people know the tip of cutting generous sheaves of the common flowering currant in January and putting them in a pail of water indoors [in a dark cupboard. When they are brought] out into the light in March, they will find not a pink but a snow-white sheaf, a bride’s sheaf, to reward them.’

  SUMMER

  For late spring and early summer, Vita – like most of us – loved peonies, her ‘gross Edwardian swagger ladies’. Along with delphiniums, peonies were one of the few herbaceous perennials she mixed in her borders and from which she picked the odd vase. Unlike delphiniums, though, peonies did well at Sissinghurst, not succumbing so readily to the scourge of the slug. Sybille Kreutzberger told me that Vita used to joke about the failure with delphiniums – ‘Hayter [one of the two gardeners who started working at Sissinghurst in 1930] treads on them,’ she would whisper. But their scanty growth was almost certainly due to the lack of slug control.

  Paeonia mlokosiewiczi, called by many ‘Molly-the-witch’ (as its proper name is so unpronounceable), is a magnificent pale primrose-yellow single, and many people’s favourite. Vita mentions a couple of others – ‘Sarah Bernhardt’ and ‘Duchesse de Nemours’, which remain hugely popular and rightly so. Each individual flower lasts at least a week in water, and even the green bullet buds will unfurl into fully blown flowers, one stem giving you up to three weeks of bloom at a stretch. These two varieties in particular give off a good scent, the white ‘Duchesse’ a delicious mix of roses crossed with lily-of-the-valley. I would add Monsieur Jules Elie as another highly scented top performer.

  Peony lactiflora hybrid.

  ‘There are few more repaying plants,’ Vita asserts. ‘Rabbits dislike them; their flowering season extends through May and June; they last for a week or more as picked flowers for the house … Larger than any rose, [each flower] has something of the cabbage rose’s voluminous quality; and when it finally drops from the vase, it sheds its vast petticoats with a bump on the table, all in an intact heap, much as a rose will suddenly fall, making us look up from our book or conversation, to notice for one moment the death of what had still appeared to be a living beauty …

  ‘[T]hey will flourish in sun or semi-shade; they will tolerate almost any kind of soil, lime-free or otherwise; they will even put up with clay … Slugs don’t care for [them]…; and the only disease [they] may seriously suffer from is wilt, a fungus, Botrytis. If this appears, you must cut out the diseased bits and burn them; but in the many years I have grown peonies in my garden I have, touch wood, never found any trace of disease amongst my gross Edwardian swagger ladies … They never need dividing or transplanting; in fact, they hate it; and they are so long-lived that once you have established a clump (which is not difficult) they will probably outlive you. Add to all this, that they will endure neglect. Mine struggled through the weeds of war and seem none the worse for it … They will go ahead, and probably outlive the person who planted them, so that his or her grandchild will be picking finer flowers fifty years hence …

  ‘Of course, if you want to do them well, they will respond as any plant will respond to good treatment. If you have a little bonemeal to spare, fork it in during the autumn. But it is not really necessary. The only thing which is really necessary is careful planting in the first instance, and by this I mean that you should dig the hole eighteen inches deep; put in som
e rotted manure or compost at the bottom; fill it in with ordinary soil and plant shallow, i.e. don’t bury the crown more than a couple of inches underground. This is important.

  A vase of lilies on Vita’s desk at Long Barn with a humea, the incense plant, in a pot to the left.

  ‘There are, roughly speaking, two different kinds of peony: the herbaceous, in which we may include the species, and the Tree peony (Paeonia suffruticosa, or Moutan). The Tree peony is not very easy to get nowadays [and is expensive]. Still, it is worth the investment, especially as it will start to flower young and will flower more and more copiously as it advances in age. Never cut it down. Mine were destroyed for ever by a jobbing gardener … when he cut them to the ground one autumn.

  ‘The herbaceous peony is the one we are accustomed to see in some not very attractive shades of red or pink in cottage gardens. Do not condemn it on that account. There are now many varieties, either single or double, ranging from pure white through white-and-yellow to shell-pink, deep pink, and the sunset colour you find in P. peregrina. This really flames; and its companion, P. lobata Sunbeam, is as good, if not better. As a yellow I would recommend P. Mlokosiewiczi, did it not cost 30s. a plant; I grew it from a sixpenny packet of seed myself, but you have to be very patient to do that. Apart from this, P. Laura Dessert is probably the best yellow and at a more reasonable price of 7s. 6d. Sarah Bernhardt, at 6s., has enormous pale pink flowers, double; Kelway’s Glorious, at 12s. 6d. is a fine white; Duchesse de Nemours, at 5s., is white with a slightly yellowish tinge and smaller flowers; Martin Cahuzac at 6s., a dark red, has leaves which colour well in autumn.’

  In contrast to the showiness of a peony, Vita also appreciated the delicacy of ixias to pick for a vase on her desk in June. You rarely see these now, but more of us should grow them – elegant and long-lasting once cut. Like freesias but without the scent, these are finer-looking, the flowers held on thread-like stems.

  ‘Brave gardeners who have a sunny corner to spare, at the foot of a south wall for choice, and a poor sandy soil, should plant some bulbs of Ixia, the South African Corn-lily, in just such a place as you would set Iris stylosa [unguiculari], starved and baked to flower at its best … Ixias are not entirely hardy, though hardier than the freesias which they somewhat resemble. Deep planting of about six inches, and a little cover throughout our damp winter, should, however, ensure their survival. On the whole I have found the ixias reasonably reliable, even in an ordinary flat bed. It is true that they diminish instead of increasing with the years, but they are so cheap, even for named varieties, that a dozen or so can be added each year to replenish the stock …

  ‘… graceful … about eighteen inches high, [they have] rushlike leaves and a flower-spike in various colours: white, yellow, coral-pink, and sometimes striped like the boiled sweets of our childhood. These, in a mixture, [are cheap to buy]. There is also a particularly lovely and rather strange variety, green with a black centre, Ixia viridiflora, more expensive [and difficult to find but worth it.] …

  ‘Of course, the more you can plant, the better. They flower in June and take up very little room. They are ideal for picking, as they last a long time in water and arrange themselves with thin and slender elegance in a tall glass.

  ‘They do also very well as pot-plants in a cold greenhouse or a conservatory, not requiring any heat but only protection from frost. If you grow them this way, you must disregard the advice to plant them six inches deep, and cover them with only an inch or so of soil – sandy loam and a handful of leaf-mould mixed to each pot, and crocks for drainage at the bottom.’

  Vita liked the small-flowered, delicate butterfly gladiolus. She recommends planting in March, or any time at intervals between March and May, to get a succession for picking from midsummer. Many people have reservations about gladioli, associating them with the huge-flowered hybrid varieties made famous by Barry Humphries’ Dame Edna. Vita was not keen on these, but the butterfly types with fine structured flowers in pretty colours make excellent cut flowers, and she liked them. They are, as she says, surprisingly perennial if mulched six inches deep for the frosty winter months:

  ‘I am never quite sure what I feel about the [large-flowered hybrid] gladioli. Handsome, yes; wonderful in colour, yes; helpful for picking, yes; invaluable in the August–September garden, providing colour at a time of year when flowers are becoming scarce, yes; supreme in the late summer flower shows, yes, in those great peacock-tail displays like swords dipped in all the hues of sunrise, sunset and storm. Here I come to a full stop and start saying No. I don’t like their habit of fading at the bottom before they have come out at the top. I don’t like the top-heaviness which entails staking if you are to avoid a mud-stained flower flattened to the ground. Finally, I don’t like the florist-shop look of them. No, take it all round, I cannot love the big gladiolus. It touches not my heart.

  ‘The little Gladiolus primulinus is a far less massive thing. Not so showy, perhaps, but more delicate to the fastidious taste. They can be had in an astonishing range of colour. If you want named varieties you will have to pay for them, but you can also get a mixture quite cheaply.

  ‘They are as showy as the dahlia and far less of a nuisance, for I have proved to my satisfaction over a number of years that they can be left in the ground through the winter – yes, even the winter of 1956 – and will reappear at the appropriate moment. There was a colony I did not much like, and could not be bothered to dig up and store, so left them to take their chance, almost hoping that they would miss it; but there they were again, and have been ever since. I suppose the corms had originally been planted fairly deep, at least 6 to 8 inches, and thus escaped the hardest freezing of the ground.

  ‘I know that what I am saying goes against all orthodox advice, but can only record my own experience. Don’t blame me if it goes wrong for you.

  ‘I like calling the gladiolus the Sword-flower. The name goes right back to the elder Pliny, who gave it that name as a diminutive of gladius, a sword; Pliny, a gardener and a naturalist, who got overwhelmed by the eruption of Vesuvius over Pompeii, 1,878 years ago.

  ‘Pliny would certainly have been amazed by our twentieth-century garden hybrids. He might, and probably would, have preferred them to the species indigenous to the Mediterranean, which is all he can have known. I should disagree with Pliny: I like the little gladioli far better than the huge things so heavy that they need staking. I like the primulinus and the so-called butterfly gladioli, in their soft colouring and their hooded habit of turning back a petal, rather after the fashion of a cyclamen. I remember – could I ever forget? – picking a bunch of little wild gladioli at sunset off a mountain in Persia and putting them in a jam-jar on the wooden crate that served as our supper-table in our camping place.

  ‘They made all the garden hybrids look more vulgar than Hollywood.’

  Moving on from bulbs for summer and autumn flowering, Vita writes enthusiastically about the currently out-of-fashion alstroemerias. And rightly so – they flower for months and have an exceptional vase life of up to three weeks. The Ligtu Hybrids, the commonest ones available in the 1930s, 40s and 50s, are great doers, but almost too much so. My mother planted some beneath standard roses in her formal front garden and they filled the bed in no time and were then tricky to contain.

  This is not true of lots of new florists’ varieties, which have been bred to be better-behaved. ‘Friendship’ and ‘Elvira’ are my modern favourites, both with stupendously long flowering seasons from May until almost Christmas in a mild year. If you keep pulling them or cutting them right to the ground if they go over, they’re quick to re-emerge and flower. They make a good simple vase, their tall, arching stems at least three foot high. The key with picking alstroemerias is to pull them, like rhubarb, rather than cut their stems.

  ‘There are some moments when I feel pleased with my garden, and other moments when I despair,’ Vita admits. ‘The pleased moments usually happen in spring, and last up to the middle of June. By that time
all the freshness has gone off; everything has become heavy; everything has lost that adolescent look, that look of astonishment at its own youth. The middle-aged spread has begun.’ Goodness, don’t we all know that feeling, when the garden suddenly seems out of control, not enough staking done early on, and the really strong weeds, the nettles and thistles, romping away, the whole place already feeling tired – and with only half the year gone.

  ‘It is then,’ says Vita, ‘that the Alstroemerias come into their own. Lumps of colour just when you need them … Alstroemerias or Peruvian lilies are rather oddly named since they all come from Chile or Brazil. They are just coming into flower, (now in late June) and should be at their best during the next two or three weeks, so this is the time to see them and judge for yourself. The common old rather dingy form, A. aurantiaca, is no longer worth growing, when you can have such superb varieties as A. haemantha, like the inside of a blood orange, or the Ligtu hybrids, which burst into every shade of colour from a strawy-buff to a coral rose, and apart from their garden value are among the loveliest of flowers for picking, since they not only arrange themselves in graceful curves in water but last for an unusually long time.

  ‘A bed of Alstroemeria Ligtu hybrids in full sun is a glowing sight. A. haemantha glows even more richly, though you may object that a flaming red-orange is an awkward colour to manage in a small garden. Personally I should like to grow half an acre of them, somewhere in the distance, if only in order to hear people gasp.