Sissinghurst

by Vita Sackville-West

  ‘May I insist on two or three points for growing them, dictated to me by practical experience? First, grow them from seed, sown on the spot where you wish them to continue their existence. This is because the roots are extremely brittle, and they loathe being transplanted. So suspicious are they of transplantation that even seedlings carefully tipped out of pots seem to sense that something precarious and unsettling is happening to them, and resent it in the unanswerable way of plants by the simple protest of death. Second, sow them either when the seed is freshly harvested, or, better still, in early spring. Third, sow them in a sunny, well-drained place. Fourth, cover them over with some protective litter such as bracken for the first winter. After observing all these instructions you will not have to worry about them any more, beyond staking them with twiggy sticks as soon as they reappear every year 6 in. above the ground, for the stems are fragile and easily broken down by wind or heavy rain. You will find that the clumps increase in size and beauty, with self-sown seedlings coming up all over the near neighbourhood.’

  There were a few other cut flowers Vita grew from seed, mostly in lines in the Kitchen Garden. She particularly cherished the annual ‘Chabaud’ carnation and tried to persuade everyone to grow them. She loved the fleck and stipple of their petals – which, as she said, were straight out of a Dutch still-life:

  ‘There are two sorts of carnations, the annual and the perennial. The annuals are divided into the Giant Chabaud, the Enfant de Nice, and the Compact Dwarf. They should be sown in February or March in boxes of well-mixed leaf-mould, soil and sharp sand. They require no heat; but in frosty weather the seedlings should be protected. Do not over-water. Keep them on the dry side. Plant them out when they are large enough, in a sunny place with good drainage. (I think myself that they look best in a bed by themselves, not mixed in with other plants.) Their colour range is wide: yellow, white, red, purple, pink, and striped. They are extremely prolific, and if sown in February should be in flower from July onwards. If you care to take the trouble, they can be lifted in October and potted, to continue flowering under glass or indoors on a window-sill, i.e. safely away from frost, well into the winter.

  ‘“Carnation” is perhaps a misleading term, since to most people, myself included, carnation suggests a greenhouse plant of the Malmaison type; an expensive buttonhole for a dandy at Ascot or Lord’s. The Chabaud carnations are more like what we think of as our grandmothers’ pinks, as pretty and scented as anyone could desire. They can be had in self-colours, or flaked and striped like the pinks in old flower-paintings; with their old-fashionable look they associate perfectly with the Damask and Gallica and Cabbage roses.’

  Vita knew how important it is to grow plenty of good summer foliage plants as well as flowers if you want to pick bunches for the house. Dill is one of the best and easiest-to-grow of these, and Vita encouraged lots of it to self-sow.

  ‘May I put in a good word for Dill?’ she asks. ‘It is, I think, extremely pretty, both in the garden and picked for indoors, perhaps especially picked for indoors, where it looks like a very fine golden lace, feathery amongst the heavy flat heads of yarrow, Achillea eupatorium, one of the most usual herbaceous plants to be found in any garden.

  ‘Dill, of course, is not an herbaceous plant; it is an annual, but it sows itself so prolifically that one need never bother about its renewal. It sees to that for itself, and comes up year after year where you want it and in many places where you don’t. It has many virtues, even if you do not rely upon it “to stay the hiccough, being boiled in wine”, or to “hinder witches of their will”. Amongst its virtues, apart from its light yellow grace in a mixed bunch of flowers, is the fact that you can use its seeds to flavour vinegar, and for pickling cucumbers. You can also, if you wish, use the young leaves to flavour soups, sauces, and fish. All mothers know about Dill-water, but few will want to go to the trouble of preparing that concoction for themselves, so on the whole the most practical use the cook or the housewife will find for this pretty herb lies in the harvest of its seeds, which are indistinguishable from caraway seeds in seed-cake or rolled into scones or into the crust of bread. Once she has got it going in her garden, she need never fear to be short of supply for seed-cake, since one ounce is said to contain over twenty-five thousand seeds; and even if she has got a few seeds left over out of her thousands she can keep them waiting, for they will still be viable after three years.

  Dill – Anethum graveolens.

  ‘The correct place for Dill is the herb garden, but if you have not got a herb garden it will take a very decorative place in any border. I like muddling things up; and if a herb looks nice in a border, then why not grow it there? Why not grow anything anywhere so long as it looks right where it is? That is, surely, the art of gardening.

  ‘By the way, the official botanical name of Dill is Peucedanum graveolens [now Anethum], for the information of anyone who does not prefer the short monosyllable, as I do.’

  Along the same lines, she loved bells of Ireland (Moluccella laevis), one of the best and longest-lasting annual foliage plants you can grow. It can be tricky to germinate. Try putting the seed in the freezer for a week before you sow – that usually jolts it into life. Then it lasts for many weeks in a vase and will dry for arrangements through the winter. Here’s what Vita says about it:

  ‘Have you grown Molucella laevis? It was introduced into this country from Syria in 1570, nearly 400 years ago, and seems to have been somewhat neglected until a recent revival of its popularity. I tried it and was disappointed when it first came up; then, as it developed, I saw that it did deserve its other name, the Shell-flower, and from being disappointed I came round to an affection for it. One must be patient with it, for it takes some leisurely summer weeks before it shows what it intends to do.

  ‘I was given to understand that it could be picked and kept in a vase indoors throughout the winter, but alas the ruthless hoe came along before I had time to arrest it, and my Shell-flower got carted off on to the rubbish heap.’

  She also had a soft spot for the white and green variegated Euphorbia marginata – ‘an old friend, a hardy annual spurge, more attractively known as Snow-on-the-mountain. It grows about 2 ft. high; its long pointed, pale-green leaves are edged with white, some of them coming white altogether, and in place of flowers it produces pure white bracts. Not only is it extremely effective, but it has the merit of lasting for months.’ This makes an excellent garden and vase foliage plant, but can also be tricky to grow. I find it does best – particularly in a wet summer – under cover, growing in a greenhouse.

  AUTUMN

  One of the very best bulbs for picking and for containers, from late summer right through the autumn, is the scented cousin of the gladiolus, Acidanthera murieliae. One of Vita’s favourite late-flowering bulbs, she describes it as a ‘lovely, fragrant thing’, ‘an exquisite dandy’. Acidanthera has a delicacy and fineness – a painterliness – typical of the species wild gladiolus, which she much preferred to the larger, coarser hybrids:

  ‘It is, perhaps, a thing for the choosy fastidious gardener, not for the gardener who wants a great splash. It will not give a showy display. Perhaps, above all, it is to be cherished for cutting, when you get the full benefit of the strong, sweet scent. Slender and graceful, on wiry stems two to three feet high, with starry white flowers blotched with a maroon centre, it comes from the aromatic hills of Abyssinia, so we may truly say of it that it hangs “like a rich jewel in an Ethiop’s ear”, and may say also that it likes the sunniest, driest place, and likes to be taken up for the winter and stored away from frost and damp.’

  For flowers right through until November, plant a batch every couple of weeks in succession from March until May or June. It takes a hundred days from planting to flower.

  Another autumn-flowering bulb, or strictly speaking a rhizomatous perennial, useful for picking, is the Kaffir lily, or schizostylis (now called Hesperantha), a valuable stalwart which Vita planted in various patches in the garden such
as on the edge of the moat and around the Lion Pond. That’s the sort of conditions it likes – a moist soil with good drainage, in a sunny, sheltered spot.

  ‘I would recommend the Kaffir Lily,’ she says, ‘officially called Schizostylis coccinea, with its pretty pink variety called Mrs. Hegarty. It resembles a miniature gladiolus, and it has the advantage, from our point of view, of flowering in October and November, when it is difficult to find anything out of doors for indoor picking.

  Kaffir lily – Schizostylis coccinea.

  ‘The Kaffir Lily [is not an expensive plant]. One dozen will give you a good return, if you plant them in the right sort of place and look after them properly. Planting them in the right sort of place means giving them a light, well-drained soil in full sun. Looking after them properly means that you must give them plenty of water during their growing period, when their leaves are throwing up, rather as you would treat an amaryllis, the Belladonna lily. You should realize that they are not entirely hardy, especially in our colder counties; but they are reasonably hardy in most parts of England; a thin quilt of bracken or dry leaves next winter will keep them safe for years. It is remarkable what a little covering of bracken will do for bulbs. Speaking for myself, I cannot imagine anything less adequate than a draughty scatter of bracken on a frosty night, give me a thick eiderdown and blankets every time, and a hot-water bottle, too, but bulbs which are buried deep down in the earth will keep themselves warm and safe with the thinnest cover from frost above them.’

  By the middle of autumn, finding plenty to pick for a vase inside becomes more of a challenge, but the question of which flowers to pick for October onwards was an important one for Vita. For that reason she became ‘very fond of [the] modest rose, Stanwell perpetual, who truly merits the description perpetual. One is apt to overlook her during the great foison of early summer; but now in October, when every chosen flower is precious, I feel grateful to her for offering me her shell-pink, highly-scented, patiently-produced flowers, delicately doing her job again for my delectation in a glass on my table, and filling my room with such a good smell that it puffs at me as I open the door.

  ‘Stanwell perpetual grows taller than the average Scots rose. It grows four to five feet high. It is … a hybrid. It has another name, according to Miss Nancy Lindsay, who is an expert on these old roses, the Victorian Valentine rose. This evokes pictures of old Valentines – but, however that may be, I do urge you to plant Stanwell perpetual in your garden to give you a reward of picking in October.’

  Another good rose for autumn and even winter picking is ‘Comtesse du Cayla’, mentioned earlier. At Sissinghurst this is in the toolshed bed where Vita had it, easy to pick just outside the South Cottage, and is still used – just the odd flower – for putting in a single-stem vase on Vita’s desk. She describes it in 1952 in In Your Garden Again: ‘… a China rose, so red in the stem on young wood as to appear transparent in a bright light; very pointed in the coral-coloured bud; very early to flower, continuing to flower throughout the summer until the frosts come (I once picked a bunch on Christmas morning); somewhat romantic in her associations, for the lady in whose honour she is named was the mistress of Louis XVIII; altogether a desirable rose, not liable to black spot or mildew; needing little pruning apart from the removal of wood when it has become too old, say, every two or three years.’

  There is callicarpa too, the purple-bead shrub which looks nothing for most of the year, but in autumn emerges with a dash of glamour you’d almost forgotten it’s capable of. It’s good to have a few plants like this, parts of the chorus who step forward to bowl you over, if only for a short time. Vita says it ‘gives some colour in November and December, also looks pretty in a glass under an electric lamp. The flowers, which come earlier in the year, are inconspicuous; the point is the deep-mauve berry, growing close to the stem in clusters, about the size of those tiny sugar-coated sweets which children call Hundreds and Thousands. I doubt if it would be hardy enough for very bleak or northern districts, though it should do well in a sunny corner in a line south of the Wash, as the weather reports say; it came undamaged through 18 degrees of frost in my garden last winter.

  ‘There is one vital thing to remember about Callicarpa: it is one of those sociable plants which like company of their own kind, so you must put at least two or three in a clump together, otherwise you won’t get the berries. It is not a question of male and female plants, as, for example, with the Sea Buckthorn, which will not give its orange fruits unless married; the explanation appears to be simply that it enjoys a party.

  ‘This, of course, is true of many of the berrying shrubs, as well as of many human beings.

  ‘I am told that it makes a pretty pot-plant, grown in a single stem, when the berries cluster even more densely, all the way up. Here, again, it would be necessary to have several pots, not only one.’

  Hardy chrysanthemums come into their own for this moment in the year, but as Vita points out, you need to take care to grow the right ones. There are plenty of good-looking chrysanths, but there are plenty of ugly ones too. She liked the garden singles – the Korean varieties – rather than the great pom-pom greenhouse types. One of the reasons people love to hate chrysanths is that they have such a long vase life and have become too commonplace. But they are such good value, so don’t throw the baby out with the bath water – find a few varieties you like, because there’s nothing better for picking towards the end of the year.

  Always keen to be one step ahead, Vita would lose no time: ‘The day after Christmas Day … we may begin to look forward to the next great happy feast of the Church, Easter, knowing that the evenings are gradually lengthening and that the moment has come to examine the catalogues and to decide on what we are going to order.

  ‘One must look forward, but one must also look back. Looking back, we shall probably remember that there was an ugly blank gap from the middle of November onwards. The ordinary Korean chrysanthemums lasted extremely well, and even put out a fresh crop of flowers after a touch of frost; they are truly invaluable plants, with none of the coarseness of the greenhouse monsters (I know I shall get into trouble for saying this), and they may now be had in a variety of ravishing colours: a dusty pink, a bracken brown, a brick red, a maize yellow, a port wine red, and many others which you will find enumerated in the nurserymen’s lists. This is the time to order them for spring delivery, if you have not already got some which you wish to increase. If you have, you can take cuttings off them any time between now and March, from the shoots which come from the roots, and dibble them into sandy soil in pots or boxes. They root more readily if you can keep them in a greenhouse with a temperature of 40 deg. to 45 deg.

  ‘It is probably quite unnecessary for me to tell anyone how to take chrysanthemum cuttings, since it is the common practice, and I set out with no such purpose. What I really wanted to mention was a late-flowering section of the Koreans, to carry us on over that awkward time in late November and December. These do best, i.e., go on flowering longer, if they can be lifted from the open ground and kept in pots or boxes in a cold greenhouse, for picking for indoors, which is what one wants at that time of year. You can get these in five different sorts: Crimson Bride, Lilac Time, Primrose Day, Red Letter Day and Wedding Day. As its name suggests, Wedding Day is white and claims to be the first white Korean to be put on the market.

  ‘There is another section of the Koreans, called the dwarf or cushion Koreans. These grow only to 1 ft. or 18 in. high, and are thus ideal plants for the front edge of a border, or for a windy place. They flower profusely throughout August, September, October, and into November, according to the varieties you choose, and share the same lovely range of colour as their taller cousins.

  ‘Order all your Korean plants now, for delivery next spring. They will look tiny and scrimpy when they arrive, but they will grow into big plants by the end of the summer.’

  As with the first two months of the year, having flowers to pick during the last two, when the garden
was dingy and the weather not beckoning you outside, was a Vita priority. As she says, ‘I find, and do not doubt that most people will agree with me, that November and December are quite the bleakest months of the year for finding “something to pick for indoors” … I propose to suggest some things that everybody can grow with a prophetic eye on next winter so that the usual blank period may not occur again. These will be things that flourish out of doors. I am not here concerned with greenhouses.’ What she had in mind were a few flowering shrubs, some with good berries, as well as one or two roses that were invaluable for their hips at this late stage in the year, both in the garden and for the vase. And with less around, it was time for the return of the tussie-mussie (or ‘tuzzy-muzzy’), the little mixed bunch – one or two sprigs of several different things tied together:

  Rosa ‘Fru Dagmar Hastrup’ hips in frost.

  ‘Prowling round through the drizzle with knife and secateurs, I collected quite a presentable tuzzy-muzzy. Some bits were scented; some were merely pretty; and few of them had been grown with a special view to picking in November.

  ‘Among the scented bits were Viburnum Bodnantense and Viburnum fragrans; some sprigs of Daphne retusa; a few stray roses, notably the Scots Stanwell perpetual and the hybrid musk Penelope who goes on and on, untiringly, and whose every bud opens in water. To these I added some lemon-scented verbena and some ivy-leaved geranium; they had been growing all summer in the open and had not yet suffered from frost.

  ‘Viburnum fragrans will start producing its apple-blossom flowers in November, and unless interrupted by a particularly severe frost will carry on until March. It is a shrub growing eventually to a height of ten or twelve feet; it is extremely hardy; easy-going as to soil; and has the merit of producing a whole nursery of children in the shape of young self-rooted shoots. Picked and brought into a warm room, it is very sweet scented.