Vita Sackville-West’s Columns for The Observer

Posted in Garden writing, gardening, The Observer, Vita Sackville-West by buzzanniebee

I went to a very informative Gardening Club talk last week by Andrew Mikolajski entitled “The March Of The Women”.

I had heard of most of the female gardeners/garden designers/horticulturalists who Andrew spoke about (Gertrude Jekyll, Ellen Willmott, Vita Sackville-West, Margery Fish, Rosemary Verey and Beth Chatto); some were new to me (Norah Lindsay, Sylvia Crowe, Martha Schwartz and Isabelle Green all of whom from memory are from the other side of the pond) but what I came home thinking was it was time to get my three Vita Sackville-West “Observer” books down from the spare room bookshelves and start dipping into them more regularly.

Her weekly columns with “The Observer” were published over the course of fifteen years, from 1946 – 1961 and many of them are available in three books: “In Your Garden”, ” In Your Garden Again” and “More For Your Garden”. There are lots of reasons I like them. They are reproduced in a monthly Jan-Dec format so you can read what she wrote this exact same week in, say, 1954, giving you an insight into the weather, the way we gardened back then and her thoughts on horticultural matters which are still very relevant today. Each of the three books has charming additions to the newspaper columns. In the first volume for example, we find her views on a visit she made to Hidcote Manor, which was originally printed in The Journal of the RHS in 1949; there are also her thoughts on some 20 flowers which caught her particular fancy (from Abutilon Megapotamicum ~ the “curious Brazilian with the formidable name” – to Zinnias ~ which “look as though they have been cut out of bits of cardboard ingeniously glued together into the semblance of a flower”).

One of the most fascinating things, which she was not allowed to publish in the original “Observer” columns, was a list of nurserymen, seedsmen and purveyors of plants and horticultural paraphernalia. In her Foreword to the first volume, she says

…neither The Observer nor any other journal could have allowed the ‘free advertisement’ of publishing the names and addresses. It led to a formidable increase in my correspondence; I think two thousand enquiries arising out of one article was the record….I trust and believe I answered them all. If anyone was overlooked, I take this opportunity of offering an apology.

A few of the recommended firms she mentions are still with us today: R.C.Notcutt of Woodbridge, Suffolk, (“lilacs a speciality”) is now a large, nationwide garden centre; Thompson & Morgan, Sutton & Sons and Unwins are all still successful distributors of seeds and sundries. One which caught my eye under, ‘Fruit Trees – and Fruit In General’ was Laxton Bros, 63H, High Street, Bedford, which is now (thank you Google Maps) a Tesco Express. Vita’s recommendation for where to buy ‘Uncommon Vegetables’ is one Mrs Kathleen Hunter of Wheal Frances, Callestick, Truro, Cornwall. I wonder who lives there now. Interestingly Kathleen’s catalogue from the mid-50s shows up on Amazon, although it is currently unavailable. I wonder whether any of Mrs Hunter’s ancestors are still in the horticultural trade.

Vita wrote across many genres: poetry, biography, criticism, travel as well as fiction. Whether you are familiar with her output or not, her garden writing is often amusing, always informative, openly honest, and normally with an eye on the reader’s budget. Profligate, she was not.

So here is an example (apropos of nothing) which I read just this morning. From March 27th, 1955, she says of Phlox,

Some people love the scent of phlox: to me, it suggests pigsties, not that I dislike pigsties, being country-born, and well accustomed to them.

Vita was born at Knole, and whilst I don’t doubt for one minute she had come across pigsties, her description of being ‘country born’ is perhaps not your or my version.

Knole is in fact a country pile situated within Knole Park, a 1,000-acre park located immediately to the south-east of Sevenoaks in west Kent, some 25 miles from her beloved Sissinghurst. The house apparently ranks in the top five of England’s largest houses occupying a total of four acres. The House: four acres. Yes, you read that correctly. She was born there in 1892, grew up there, and here recounts a legend that it is a calendar house:

….its seven courtyards correspond to the days of the week, its fifty-two staircases to the weeks of the year, its three hundred and sixty-five rooms to the days of the year, but ‘I do not know that anyone has ever troubled to verify it.’

With a new film due out in the UK in July, which concentrates on Vita’s love affair with Virginia Woolf, an increased spotlight will no doubt once again be on her, her writing, her fascinating life, as well her garden in Sissinghurst. For me, the short snippets of gardening expertise in these three books are beautifully written and charming. We are lucky to have them.

Annie Bee xxx

30Jul2017

The Making of the White Garden ~ 5. Adding Grey

Posted in garden design, gardening, Grey plants, white garden by buzzanniebee

There have been many takes on colour-schemed gardens. But white gardens are perhaps the most difficult to pull off – or at least I think so! Often thought of as simply the colour of light, white is most often used in gardens to dot light around, highlighting other colours and brightening up darker areas. Technically it is an achromatic colour ~ that is a colour without a hue. Used en masse white works best against dark, enclosing hedges (of Yew or Buxus perhaps, or in my case, beech). Interestingly Vita Sackville-West referred to her famous (the most famous?) white garden at Sissinghurst both her “pale garden” as well as a “green, grey, white and silver garden”. Whether white is a colour or not, in terms of plants, there are many shades of white and it does to be fairly open-minded. Pale creams, pale yellows, pink tinges, the blue flowers of a Hosta – are they welcome?

On Gardeners’ World this week, Mat Reece, Head Gardener at the 10-acre private garden Malverleys in Hampshire said that when an unwanted colour pops up in their white garden, it is like having a nasty mark on a pristine white shirt. I have ended up moving a few creamy-yellow Wallflowers which were frankly too coloured. The odd rogue self-seeded scarlet poppies have also been given very short shrift.

I have found that it is A) hard to stick with white, pure white and nothing but the white and B) softer and more interesting with other colours allowed to act as a foil to the white. Grey (and silver) and green are the most obvious choices and these seem to add depth to the two borders – so which grey plants have I included in this first summer?

I have found that Senicio cineraria ‘Silver Dust’ (which I grew from seed in vast quantities) has proved invaluable. I have also enjoyed using Eryngium giganteum ‘Miss Willmott’s Ghost’ (so-called because Miss Ellen Willmott, apparently never went anywhere without a pocketful of seeds of that particular Eryngium which she would liberally throw about in other people’s borders). The evergreen dwarf shrub, Artemisia ‘Powis Castle’ is also a key grey plant in my scheme. The felty Stachys byzantina ‘Silver Carpet’ will make an appearance next year and I will also add some Hostas which have a grey leaf (this year I just went for Hosta ‘Francee fortunei which is green and white) – well, I say grey, but they technically have a blue-ish tinge. Hosta ‘Babbling Brook’ would do nicely.

The photos below show the cineraria; Eryngium, Stachys, Hosta and Artemisia.

I planted several pots with white Lilium regale, underplanted with cineraria, ready to dot them around the borders as some of the other annuals start to die back or look scruffy. Already, here towards the end of July, my White Ensign sweet peas, which have been spectacular (lovely long stems so very good for cutting) are beginning to go over and will leave unsightly gaps in August before the white Asters and Anemones start their moment in the sun.

Sun? We haven’t had much of that of late, but one lives in hope. I am known for fussing about lack of anything – rain, sunshine, chocolate….. As a gardener, lack of rain seems worse to me than lack of sun, but both end up driving me mad!

Do let me know if you have any favourite white or grey plants. A fellow blogger who I enjoy reading, Jenny Williams, suggested the following white plants, which work well for her: Geranium sanguineum ‘Album’; Hesperis matronalis (Sweet Rocket) ‘White’; the Japanese Anemone ‘Honorine Jobert’ and Narcissus ‘Thalia’, all of which I will try out as the garden develops.

In fact, as the weather is rubbish and a storm is due to blow in this afternoon I might as well go to the Garden Centre right now.

Happy gardening, friends.

Annie Bee xx

30Jul2015

The Rise Of The She Shed

Posted in man-cave, she shed, shed, sheds, Sissinghurst, Vita Sackville-West by buzzanniebee

Most of us will have heard of the Man Cave – a place for the male to go and do his stuff – it could be a den, a study, the garage, a basement or a music room. In essence, it is a place where a man can do what they like without upsetting the females in their life. A sanctuary if you will.

Well say hello to the She Shed (or She[d] or She-d?), the feminine equivalent. Of course there is a very big difference between an actual real-life pimped up shed and a bigger, more expensive garden room, which may have electricity, heating and running water; these can pretend to be a humble shed but we all know better.

But sales of the She Shed are apparently on the up and a lot can be done with a small wooden garden shed it seems. Women have jumped on the man cave bandwagon and are carving a small, quiet space in which to do their stuff. Writing, thinking, crafting, hiding from the family ~ the She Shed is the new place to be. And ~ boy! ~ can it be beautiful.

Surely one of the most famous writer’s retreats (though admittedly a long way from being a simple shed) was Vita Sackville-West’s writing room in the Elizabethan Tower at Sissinghurst Castle. A key member of the Bloomsbury set, her hide-away at the top of the famous tower is where most of her novels and poems were written. I am very fond of her inspiring and informative collections of gardening articles which she wrote in the Observer, from 1946 until 1961, and can be found in her anthologies (In Your Garden; In Your Garden Again; More For Your Garden). They are still very relevant to English gardeners today. Many of these were penned in her She Shed equivalent space.

So whether you are writing about gardening, sewing, sowing, thinking, meditating, working out, writing a novel, or you just want some space where you can relax and be quiet, the She Shed might well be the answer.

For loads more inspirational pictures of She Sheds, click here: Annie Bee’s pinterest shed pics.

Let me know if you are lucky enough to have a She Shed, and send a photo. I am off to see whether my shed, which currently bears no resemblance whatsoever to these pictures, could be transformed. Wish me luck!

Annie Bee x