Sissinghurst Castle - Part Fifteen - Page 2

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Page 2

Oct 31, 2001

A major change in the Rose Garden since Vita's day is the lack of mature trees. A row of twelve crabapples once lined the central path between the Rondel and the Powis Wall; by the 1960s they were so elderly and diseased that they removed. The roses which had languished in their shade suddenly thrived, so the trees weren't immediately replaced, but it has since been realized that the trees supplied a necessary element of height. Young Amelanchier trees now line the walk; Sissinghurst's gardeners hope that their open branching pattern will not shade the roses too much.

A change that Vita probably would approve of is the paving of the Rose Garden's walks. During her life there was a paved stone walk along the Long Border, but all of the other walks were of mown grass. After the National Trust took over the garden in 1967, the number of visitors increased so dramatically that the grass paths simply couldn't hold up - they were reduced to mud. The Nicolsons would have paved more paths if their budget had allowed for such an expense, so the new pavings don't seem out of place.

I mentioned in my previous article that the Rose Garden is divided into unequal halves by the Rondel. The Powis Wall terminates the view from the Rondel into the western part of the garden. The photo below shows the view from the steps at the base of the Powis Wall's terrace through the Rondel, towards a classical statue.

The photograph was taken in April and there aren't a lot of leaves on the roses, so you can't really see the contrast between the billowing rosebushes and the clipped architecture of the hedges, but you can see that this is a garden that doesn't need flowers in order to be interesting. I don't have any clipped hedges in my own garden, but this garden makes me think that the time and effort that clipped yew hedges require may be a worthwhile investment.

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