May 2009 UK Garden Photos - Sissinghurst
Click 2-3 times to enlarge detail. Enjoy!!
Sissinghurst. Pretty much the Mecca of Arts and Crafts Gardens - laid out by Vita Sakville West's husband Harold Nicolson, planted by Vita, incorporating Gertrude Jekyll's design concepts. For me, the draw is the 10 unique garden "rooms", bordered by walls of all types, surrounding the ruins of 12-16th century castle ruins. This garden is my exact vision of Heaven. I want to live there.This is a picture of the tower. It is the entrance to the gardens, and Vita's writing rooms were on the third floor of one of the turrets. I also climbed to the top and took some fantastic ariel views of the gardens rooms.
(Right) When you walk through the large arch of the tower gate, you come into a lovely walled courtyard with a flower border and path around the walls, and that lovely, soft English grass for the main part of the courtyard. Along the walls, they have these ancient stone troughs filled with plants. Here was an interesting one filled with succulents. The color and texture of the plant against the stone trough and the brick wall was really interesting.
The gardens were covered with the most amazing giant climbing roses, clematis, wisteria, and other vines. This one made me stop in my tracks. It was not what would bloom on it, but the way they had used the woody part of the vine to decorate the wall. The smooth stems in circles against the brick was actually stunning. Click to see the detail of this.
I thought this was facinating. When you entered the tower, there was a chalkboard with the gardeners notes to each other on it. First, it was interesting that there is a head gardener, 5 professional gardeners, one volunteer and a student gardener. The note also talked about how they actually grow all the canes they use as fencing or to hold plants upright on the grounds. (The note was telling the student to harvest some more for the roses.) I actually love that concept. It goes right along with my edible landscaping vision. I also read somewhere that the Vita's grandson who lives at Sissinghurst has been working to grow as much food as possible for the Tea Room on the farm that surrounds the formal gardens.
One of several Plant Bitch moments for me in this garden. This was a stunning little hosta that I haven't seen before. It was interesting to me that they used a few hostas here and there, but not nearly as many as we would use. The shade gardens had lots of ferns, trillium, epimedium and pulmeria. 
Another view of the tower from one of the gardens. I love how the tower dominates everything. You can look up and always see it. It orients you to where you are in the labyrinth of garden rooms. If you blow up this picture to full size and look at the tower carefully, you will see a the top of a MASSIVE rose that is growing up one turret and over the archway. It is probably 30 or more feet tall, yet has the most demure 1 inch yellow flowers in sprays throughout it. I really appreciated the subtle contrast of the size of the plant to the flowers.
(Right) A view through a hallway of the most impeccably manicured yews to a beautiful focal point. It is interesting to note that I took this picture from a quite small, perfectly circular garden room which was walled with the same yews. Sort of a garden round about. It had 4 entrances, each leading to a garden room with a completely different flavor. This is my personal garden dream come true. It was so wonderful to be there.
Passage from a walled garden to a yew walled garden. I love, love, love the design. How could you help but want to go through this door and explore? Note the huge clematis in full bloom. The most common variety I saw blooming thoughout my trip was v. Montana - which is interesting, because I've seen it in catalogs, but never tried to grow it, or even seen it grown in local gardens. Note to self: my homage to this trip is going to be to successfully grow a Montana clematis. (I even saw it grown as a shrub at Kirsty's house- it was amazing!) The blue flowers to the right of the door are Aquilegia, the blooming shrub on the left is a Potentilla, which I saw lots of.
In the herb garden, the focal point at the center was this whimsical planter dripping with thyme. I also have become interested in the brick or cobble stone patterns that they used under center sections of the garden rooms. It is sort of like a tightly packed sunray sort of design. I think I need that somewhere in my garden.
This is a shot of the Nuttery. If you know me, you know I love everything about this - I mean everything! First, they were hazelnuts - which I am going to grow just as soon as I finish clearing out the scrub behind the garage. Again, it fits with my notion of edible landscaping (suburban farmer that I am!) It is underplanted with ferns, trillium, and all the other shade perennials I love. And...a little statue as a focal point. Perfection in my view. I kept coming back to walk here.
Next, I climbed the tower. On the way up, I saw Vita's writing studio. Wonderful! It was worth the trip just to see that cool space. It was a 20 foot octangle space, stuffed with books, craftsman & ancient pottery and textiles, art, a fireplace and fabulous tudor pane windows. Off the main room was a second approx. 12 foot little round room fitted with bookshelves all the way round. 
I saw it and could just imagine what life would be like going up there to read and write everyday. Yes...I think I could adapt to that life! It was worth the trip to see this alone. Unfortunately, photos were prohibited.
The tower is about 60 or 70 feet tall. From the top you get a totally different perspective on the gardens. I appreciated them even more. If I owned the tower, I would have to enclose the top in glass, so I could live up there and look down on these views every day.
More P.B. moments. The bleeding heart was the reddest I've ever seen. It would go great in my red garden by the Hollys off the cold porch. This other plant caught my eye as well. It has foliage like a thistle, but variegated. There was no tag, but keep your eyes peeled and help me identify it.
This was at the far end of the Lime walk. I loved how the willow cascaded over her head almost like a really dramatic headdress. I wish I would have taken a picture looking down the other way. The Lime walk was very interesting to me as an American. I don't know if we have those trees here, they might be a kind of Linden. They are ornamental with astonishingly smooth light colored bark (gray, I think), and they have them expillaed so that their branches are touching sideways down the walk. It sort of looks like a paper chain of kids holding hands. Very pleasant and bright. I just found someone else's pictures of the Lime Walk online. Click to see
A detail of the boxwood garden which is in front of the library. At the very end there is a wonderful arbor with seating.
Another little corner garden within a larger garden room. This was a sunken garden with some of the largest ferns I've ever seen. They were beautiful. In the back, you can see a giant metal, (might be lead), decorated trough. I believe these were used to collect rainwater to drink, wash with, etc in Tudor times. I saw the same thing at Hampton Court and Knole House.
These oast houses are just in front of the tower, on the outside of the garden, but still part of the Sissinghurst grounds. Inside there was an exhibits about the history of Sissinghurst, Vita's pal Virginia Wolf, and Hops drying and processing in Kent. You do find these buildings in other parts of the country, but they are most commonly associated with the county of Kent.
Not the best photo of the country side from outside the hay barn. What I was trying to capture was the vivid yellow fields in the distance. This crop is called Rape and is grown for the oil in it's seeds. The English use this as we would use corn oil. The fields are a beautiful patchwork in bloom.I'm still processing everything I saw and thought about while I was in this fabulous garden. I think what I connected with the most was that it is almost perfectly aligned with my taste and gardening philosophy. It had everything I seek in my dream garden - walls, interesting plants, distinctive garden rooms, focal points, sound, smell, a 16th century tower, and a team of gardeners to carry out my wishes. Sort of my my own personal Nirvana. If you ever get a chance to go there, it is well worth the trip.