Sissinghurst

by Vita Sackville-West

  ‘These are many virtues to claim, but even so we may add to them. It is the Eglantine of the poets, if you like that touch of romance. True, Milton seems to have confused it with something else, probably the honeysuckle:

  ‘… through the sweet-briar or the Vine,

  Or the twisted Eglantine …

  ‘But what does that matter? it is pedantic to be so precise, and we should do better to take a hint from Milton and plant a mixed hedge of honeysuckle and sweet-briar, with perhaps an ornamental vine twining amongst them – the purple-leafed vine, Vitis vinifera purpurea, would look sumptuous among the red hips in October.

  ‘I have never seen a hedge of this composition; but why not? Ideas come to one; and it remains only to put them into practice. The nearest that I have got is to grow the common Clematis Jackmanii into my sweet-briar, planting the clematis on the north side of the hedge, where the roots are cool and shaded and the great purple flowers come wriggling through southwards into the sun. It looks fine, and the briar gives the clematis just the twiggy kind of support it needs.

  ‘Sweet-briar is a strong grower, but is often blamed for going thin and scraggy towards the roots. I find that you can correct this weakness by planting your hedge in the first instance against a system of post-and-wire, and subsequently tying-in the long shoots to the posts and wire instead of pruning them. Tie the shoots horizontally, or bend them downwards if need be, thus obtaining a thick, dense growth, which well compensates you for the initial trouble of setting up the posts and the wire. They will last for years, and so will the briar.

  ‘The common sweet-briar [is cheap], and the single plant will spread, horizontally, twenty feet or more. The Penzance hybrid briars are more expensive … Amy Robsart, with deep rose flowers, and Lady Penzance, with coppery-yellow flowers, are particularly to be recommended.’

  Vita went ahead and planted a hedge of sweet briar which still divides the Orchard from the path to the South Cottage back door, and its scent – particularly on a muggy June evening – is extraordinary.

  The rugosa rose ‘Blanc double de Coubert’ and the Hybrid Musk ‘Penelope’ come up again and again in Vita’s writing. It was for the length of their flowering season and the power of their fragrance that she most cherished them. She was also fond of ‘Souvenir du Docteur Jamain’, which she saved from extinction:

  ‘There are roses which are “fast of their scent”, requiring to be held to the nose, and others which generously spread themselves upon the summer air. Of these, I would signal three in particular: rosa rugosa alba and rugosa Blanc double de Coubert, and the hybrid musk Penelope. These all make big bushes, and should be placed near a corner where you frequently pass. They all have the merit of continuous flowering, and rugosa alba produces bright red hips in autumn, like little round apples amongst the yellowing leaves, adding to its attraction, interest and charm.

  ‘The rugosa hybrid, Parfum de l’Hay, has the reputation of being one of the most strongly scented of all roses. Unfortunately its constitution is not as strong as its scent. Perhaps light soils don’t suit it. Its companion, Roseraie de l’Hay, might do better, and smells nearly as good. Neither of them makes a big bush, so would be suitable for a small garden.

  ‘Souvenir du Docteur Jamain is an old hybrid perpetual which I am rather proud of having rescued from extinction. I found him growing against the office wall of an old nursery. No one knew what he was; no one seemed to care; no one knew his name; no one had troubled to propagate him. Could I dig him up, I asked? Well, if you like to risk it, they said, shrugging their shoulders; it’s a very old plant, with a woody stiff root. I risked it; Docteur Jamain survived his removal; and now has a flourishing progeny in my garden and also on the market of certain rosarians to whom I gave him. Docteur Jamain is a deep red, not very large flowers, but so sweetly and sentimentally scented. Some writers would call it nostalgically scented, meaning everything that burying one’s nose into the heart of a rose meant in one’s childhood, or in one’s adolescence when one first discovered poetry, or the first time one fell in love.

  ‘I think Docteur Jamain should not be planted in too sunny a place. He burns. A south-west aspect suits him better than full south.’

  Vita was also partial to the Bourbon roses – and who can blame her? – with their romantic history and intense, delicious scent. In my experience ‘Madame Isaac Pereire’ does have a magnificent scent, but is also prone to blackspot and mildew, which can defoliate a plant if not kept under control. When Vita was writing, it’s possible the higher content of sulphur and other pollutants in the air, even in Kent, meant that the fungus scourge was less of a problem. It’s counterintuitive, though: you’d think unclean air – unhealthy roses. But the reverse is the case.

  ‘If you were born with a romantic nature, all roses must be crammed with romance, and if a particular rose originated on an island the romance must be doubled, for an island is romantic in itself.

  ‘The island I refer to lies off the south-east coast of Africa, near Mauritius. It used to be called the Île Bourbon, now called Réunion. The inhabitants of this small island had the pleasing habit of using roses for their hedges: only two kinds, the Damask rose and the China rose. These two married in secret; and one day, in 1817, the curator of the botanic garden on the Île Bourbon noticed a seedling he transplanted and grew on, a solitary little bastard which has fathered or mothered the whole race we now call the Bourbon roses.

  ‘It is curious to find Mr. Edward Bunyard writing in 1936 in his book Old Garden Roses that the Bourbon roses “are now almost forgotten”, and listing only four as being “still obtainable”. (Hermosa, Bourbon Queen, Louise Odier, and Mme Pierre Oger.) He does not even mention Zéphyrine Drouhin, the rose which so far back as 1868 decided to discard armaments and has been known as the thornless rose ever since. This shows how taste has changed within the last twenty years, for it is now possible to obtain at least two dozen different varieties.

  ‘Far from being forgotten, now that the shrub roses have returned to favour, Rosa bourboniana includes some of the most desirable. Their scent alone makes one realize the extent to which they have inherited that quality from their damask parent; one has only to think of Mme Isaac Péreire and Mme Pierre Oger, admittedly two of the most fragrant roses in cultivation. We all have our scented favourites; and someone is bound to say, “What about Parfum de l’Hay?”, but I must still support the claims of these two ladies in the Bourbon group.

  ‘The cross has resulted in an oddly varied lot. There is Coupe d’Hébé, 1840, which you might easily mistake for a centifolia or cabbage rose; and if you like the striped roses there are Honorine de Brabant and Commandant Beau-paire, 1874, pink and white like Rosa mundi, but not, I contend, as good as that ancient Rose of the World. Among the more recent crosses, Zigeuner Knabe, 1909, makes the most swagger boastful bush you could set at any corner: a reddish purple, it looks more like a Cardinal fully robed, about to set off in procession, than like the Gypsy Boy we call it in English.

  ‘The Bourbon roses should not be heavily pruned, and indeed their full beauty can be displayed only when they are allowed to grow into the great tall bushes natural to them. Dead and twiggy wood should be cut out. How easy to say, and how scratchy to do.’

  On the disease issue with the Bourbons, she gives us some good practical advice: ‘There are several schools of thought on the control of [blackspot], which causes complete defoliation in bad cases and must end in destroying the constitution of the plant, thus deprived of its natural means of breathing through the leaves. The orthodox method is spraying with Bordeaux mixture in January and February. T.M.T., or Thiram, sometimes supplied under the name Tulisan, is also recommended for fortnightly use from the end of May onwards. Some rose-growers also advise a thick mulch of lawn clippings, peat-moss litter, or even sawdust. Others put their faith (such as it is) in rich feeding, on the principle that a healthy, well-nourished plant is more resistant to infection. I must say that I found this works well. It may s
ound unscientific, since black spot is a fungus, and you might imagine that a fungus would establish itself on weak or strong plants equally once it had made up its mind to do so; but I am not a scientific gardener and can judge only by results. The result of some barrow-loads of compost was: no black spot on some particularly vulnerable roses two summers running, including the damp summer we have recently disenjoyed.’

  Continuing with shrubs, Vita loved the scent of philadelphus – exotic and spicy, and as its common name, mock orange, implies, deliciously reminiscent of orange blossom and abelia which, as Vita says, smells of jasmine.

  Philadelphus coronarius.

  Starting with philadelphus, its name ‘seems to suit it nicely, meaning brotherly or sisterly love in Greek, suggesting a purity of love distinct from any sexual passion.

  ‘Yet the thing is bridal. It makes huge bushes of the purest white. The love of siblings may be all very well, but it is a truly nuptial thing, an epithalamium of a poem for young lovers.

  ‘I saw it foaming about in two famous gardens I recently went to in Gloucestershire. I saw it also in all the cottage gardens of that incomparable Cotswold country. It was everywhere; all over the place. I scolded myself for not having planted philadelphus in masses when I first started to make my garden. Had I done so years ago, I should have had huge bushes by now, but it is never too late.

  ‘I have got the dear old Philadelphus coronarius, that sweet-scented bush that takes one straight back to one’s childhood. Three hundred years ago, Gerard the herbalist wrote that he had cut some flowers of this old plant, and laid them in his chamber, but found them of so unacquainted a savour that he could not take rest until he had cast them out. This can mean only that he found the scent too strong. What I hadn’t realized was that some of the later flowering sorts were almost equally generous of their scent. Now I know better. The little microphyllus may not be very showy but smells delicious in its small white flowers. Lemoinei erectus is also sweet-scented. Belle Etoile isn’t; or at any rate I can’t detect any scent in it. Perhaps that is the fault of my nose; anyhow it is so magnificent a shrub that we all ought to grow it. You have P. virginal, with big white double flowers, a lovely cool green-and-white sight in midsummer; and Belle Etoile and P. purpureo-maculatus, white with a purple blotch in the centre; the last two scentless, alas, unlike the spring-flowering P. coronarius. Grandiflorus is the one with big single white flowers, very decorative but entirely scentless, which may be a recommendation for people who do not like heavily-scented flowers in their rooms.

  ‘By the way, if you strip all the leaves from cut branches, they will last far longer, besides gaining in beauty. Try. And smash the woody stems with a hammer. [Or sear the stem ends in boiling water for thirty seconds.]

  ‘The philadelphus family is so complicated that it is difficult to distinguish between them. They hybridize so freely amongst themselves that scarcely anybody knows now which are species or which are hybrids. Do we have to worry about this? Should we not rather plant as many as we can secure, this autumn [she’s writing in July 1956], in the anticipation of great white bushes a few years hence?’

  Another favoured shrub was Abelia triflora. ‘It flowers in June, grows to the size of what we used to call Syringa [Philadelphus, above], and is smothered in white, funnel-shaped flowers with the strongest scent of Jasmine … do plant Cytisus Battandieri. This is a broom; and when it has grown into a large tree it is hung with gold-yellow tassels in June, with a peculiar scent. I could not think what the scent was, till my kind host who had it growing in his garden fixed it for me: “It is the scent of pineapple mixed with fruit salad.” He was right.

  ‘Cytisus Battandieri is supposed to be hardy, but I suspect that in cold districts it would be safer to train it against a wall.’

  Lilies were very much part of Vita’s summer garden repertoire, Lilium auratum appearing in her invaluable fragrance list (see here) ‘as a luxury’. This bulb is indeed a luxury as they are so expensive, so if you’re going to grow them, they’re most sensibly cultivated in a pot (see here). There are now various hybrids with some auratum genes, almost as good and a fraction of the price of the species. I grew the very similar ‘Gold Band’ last year and fell in love with it. It has vast flowers, the size of sideplates, white with a central gold band – like auratum – and a triumphant scent.

  Lilium regale.

  Vita also loved Lilium regale, ‘that sweet-scented trumpet which is perhaps the easiest of that tricky family to grow’. They were and are a central plant in the summer White Garden.

  ‘The tall white lilies,’ she writes, ‘have been a tremendous stand-by in the June and July garden. Their cool splendour at twilight came like a draught of water after the hot day. I like to see them piercing up between low grey foliaged plants such as artemisia, southernwood, and santolina, and rising above some clouds of gypsophila, for there is something satisfying in the contrasting shapes of the domed bushes and the belfry-like tower of the lily; an architectural harmony.

  ‘Many people think lilies difficult to grow, and write them off as an expensive disappointment. I have myself. I try. I fail. I despair. Then I try again. This misconception must be due to several causes: (1) the notorious inverted snobbishness of the Madonna lily, which apparently refuses to flourish except in cottage gardens, (2) the prevalence of the fungus disease known as botrytis and the virus disease known as mosaic, (3) the belief that all lilies enjoy the same conditions, (4) the attempts of inexperienced gardeners to succeed with certain varieties which really defy all but the most expert handling. If the amateur, however, should content himself with half a dozen reliable kinds, triumph and not disappointment should be his.

  ‘Start with the kinds that offer a reasonable hope of success, a short list in which the regal lily, L. regale, the Tiger lily, L. tigrinum, the yellow Turk’s cap, L. pyrenaicum, the purplish Turk’s cap, L. martagon, the vari-coloured L. umbellatum (or hollandicum) and the giant orange L. henryi, may safely figure…’

  Then she says – get advice from people who truly know how to grow them:

  ‘Only last week did it occur to me to go and ask for advice from a famous grower of lilies in my neighbourhood, which was the obvious and sensible thing to do. I might have thought of it before. Surely he will not mind my passing on the hints he gave me, especially if it leads to an encouragement to grow some varieties of this supremely beautiful family.

  ‘There are four cardinal points, he said, like the compass. Point 1: good drainage is essential; no stagnant moisture, even if it means digging out a hole and putting a layer of crocks or coarse clinker at the bottom. Point 2: make up a suitable bed to receive your bulbs, a bed rich in humus, which means leaf-mould, peat, compost, chopped bracken, or whatever form of humus you can command. Point 3: never plant lily bulbs which have been out of the ground too long or have had their basal roots cut off. Reject these, even if you find them offered at cheap rates in the horticultural department of some chain stores. Lily bulbs should be lifted fresh and replanted quickly, with their basal roots intact; therefore it is advisable to obtain them from any reputable nurseryman, who will pack them in moist peat and will never allow them to dry out before despatch. Point 4: divide when they become overcrowded.

  ‘To these hints I might add another. Most lilies dislike what professional gardeners call “movement of air”, which in plain English means wind or a draught … so give them an abode within the shelter of shrubs. I have also discovered by experience that the Regal lily, L. regale, likes growing amongst some covering shelter such as Southernwood (Old Man) or one of the artemisias, I suppose because the foliage gives protection to the young lily-growth against late frosts, but also because some plants take kindly to one another in association.

  ‘Finally, he said, remember that nothing makes a finer mulch than bracken cut green, chopped up into short pieces, and allowed to rot. He deprecated the use of lawn-grass mowings; of artificial fertilizers; and of over-fresh organic manure. Manure, he said, shoul
d never be allowed to come into contact with the bulb itself: it should be placed well beneath it, or used as a top mulch. Bone meal, he said, was always safe and useful.

  ‘Also remember to acquaint yourself with the likes and dislikes of the lilies he intends to grow. Some hate lime; others demand it.’

  To this list we’d now have to add the scourge of the scarlet-red lily beetle. This eats holes in the leaves – and the flowers – and weakens the bulb. They are notoriously difficult to squash, too, having very tough exoskeletons. The only thing guaranteed to get rid of them is a prophylactic spray with a systemic insecticide but many of us are reluctant to do this.

  Increase your stock by raising lilies from ‘seed or scales, a most fascinating occupation’, which Vita recommends particularly for L. regale.

  ‘[Lilies are not cheap] … so if you want them in any quantity it will pay you to raise them from seed … so look out for seeding heads in your own or a friend’s garden. You can also buy seed [quite cheaply] … but it is more fun to crack open a seed-pod and shake out those marvellously packed, paper-thin seeds for yourself. Every one of them should germinate, and one pod alone should give you more lilies than you will ever have space for. Choose the seeds from the strongest plant; sow them in a seed box and plant out the little bulbs next year in rows in a nursery bed where you can keep an eye on them; by the end of the second year you ought to be picking a few single flowers; by the end of the third year they ought to be fully developed. If you repeat the process yearly, thus staggering your supply of bulbs, you should never be without L. regale in your garden, at no cost.

  ‘You realize, of course, that you can do the same with those little black boot-buttons that appear on the stems of the old tiger-lily?

  ‘I cannot resist adding a note at a later date (1950) to pass on an amusing hint for growing lilies from seed. You need a screw-top jar, such as housewives bottle fruit in; a mixture of leaf-mould, peat, and loam, enough to fill the jar; and half a handful of seed. You make the mixture wet, and then squeeze it in your hand till it stops dripping and becomes a damp sponge. You then introduce it into the jar, sowing the seed in layers as you go, until the mixture and the seed have both reached the rim. You then screw on the top; put the jar on the window-sill in a warm room, and watch for the seeds which have come to the edge, where you can see them, to develop into little tadpole-like bodies which, you hope, will eventually become bulbs …