People often think of the gardens at Sissinghurst as Vita's creation, but she always acknowledged Harold as the garden's principle designer. Harold was by nature a classicist, while Vita was a romantic. The gardening style that Harold and Vita developed together wasn't uniquely their own; it was a direct descendant of what has become known as the "Hidcote style".
During the 19th century, large numbers of plants were introduced to Europe from all over the world. This created design problems because the English landscape gardens required a limited palette of plants in order to achieve harmony. While the traditional formal gardens of Europe were easily adapted to the Victorian craze for bedding plants, they weren't well suited to the display of many varieties of plants. By the early 20th century Gertrude Jeckyll and Edward Lutyens were developing a style of garden in which formal gardens were informally planted. This style reached perfection in the garden at Hidcote Manor, which was created by Major Lawrence Johnston between 1907 and 1948. Hidcote features formal garden rooms enclosed by clipped hedges. These hedges give the garden such a strong structure that a wide variety of plants can be grown. Without the clipped hedges, the garden would mainly be a collection of plants, rather than a great work of art.
Harold greatly admired Edward Lutyens' approach to garden design and Vita loved the profusion of plants in Hidcote's garden, which she described as "a jungle of beauty; a jungle controlled by a single mind". Because they created their garden among the ruins of a Tudor manorhouse, it was not an imitation of Hidcote. Harold used clipped hedges to tie the remaining parts of the manorhouse together and within this structure Vita created her own jungle of beauty.
Sissinghurst's rose garden is often described as very typical of Vita's style of planting. Unlike Gertrude Jeckyll, Vita rarely used "architectural" plants such as yuccas; she preferred billowing masses of flowers. Vita's planting style contrasted perfectly with the green architecture of Harold's clipped hedges. Sissinghurst's style is a product of Harold and Vita's unusual marriage, in which two personalities both contrasted and harmonized with each other. The result was a garden which was greater than what either of them could have created on their own.
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