Gardening at Sissinghurst
By Tony Lord
Macmillan, $40
ISBN 0028603893
Review by Pat Regel
Have you made your pilgrimage to England yet? Gardeners will continue to worship at the Sissinghurst shrine for years to come, and with good reason. If this is your year to travel, prepare yourself with Tony Lord's Gardening at Sissinghurst. Lord, the Gardens Advisor to England's National Trust and winner of the Garden Writers' Guild Award in 1994, brings Sissinghurst to life. Behind Sissinghurst (the most viewed garden in England -- yearly) is the successful collaboration between the husband and wife team of Harold Nicolson and Vita Sackville-West. She's the only woman this reviewer knows of who'd have the force of personality to wear pearls with jodhpurs in the garden and get away with it. The lady had guts. He is the creator of the garden's strict formal design; she is the creator of the loose informality in planting. Tony Lord reveals the design, development, planting, and maintenance behind the garden, which is now managed by the National Trust.
But, Lord offers more:
- There are insights into how the original founders achieved the perfect proportion between the classic and the romantic.
- There is a list of plant combinations and a descriptive catalogue of every plant raised in the gardens.
- And, then, there are those photos-200 of them in full color, which show why the garden is so unusual.
Here's a tip: read this book before you go. Then, when you actually see the garden, you'll be prepared to view it from a cerebral standpoint (pad and pencil in hand) instead of an overpowering emotional one, which won't allow you to collect your thoughts and see the garden as it really is. But, don't be fooled. No matter how you view this garden, it will affect you.
Pat Regel writes, gardens, and lectures in Nashville.
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