Boston Flora

Tag: Vita Sackville-West

  • Thursday, April 28, 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm – Reimagining Vita-Sackville West’s Sissinghurst Garden, Online

    For those of you who missed Troy Scott Smith’s talk at Long Hill on April 1, we have another opportunity. In this virtual illustrated Garden Conservancy talk on April 28 at 2 pm, Troy recounts his long tenure at Sissinghurst and his efforts to recapture the distinctive vision of its creators, the writers Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson, in the 1930s, as a refuge dedicated to natural beauty. He studied not only Sackville-West’s and Nicolson’s gardening style, but also their characters, philosophy, and interests, while balancing the reality of hundreds of thousands of annual visitors and the effects of climate change. In the end, Troy shows how he settled on an approach that allowed past, present, and future to co-exist.

    One of Britain’s best-known Head Gardeners, Troy Scott Smith, has devoted his career to the beauty and romance of gardening. Since joining the National Trust of England, Wales, and Northern Ireland in 1990, Troy has led some of the world’s most beautiful gardens, among them the Courts (Wiltshire), Bodnant (Wales) and two stints at Sissinghurst (Kent), where he has led a remarkable transformation and restoration of the Vita Sackville-West gardens.

    After spearheading a multi-year plan as Head Gardener at Sissinghurst, which included the recreation of a Mediterranean-style garden from the Greek Island of Delos, Troy left to take up leadership of the award winning Iford Manor Garden in Wiltshire, near Bath, where he set in motion a 10 -year masterplan. After two years, Troy returned to his spiritual home of Sissinghurst.

    A recording of this webinar will be sent to all registrants a few days after the event. We encourage you to register, even if you cannot attend the live webinar. $5 for Garden Conservancy members, $15 General Admission. Register HERE.

    Members of the Frank & Anne Cabot Society for planned giving have complimentary access to Garden Conservancy webinars. All Cabot Society members will automatically be sent the link to participate on the morning of the webinar. For more information about the Cabot Society, please contact Sarah Parker at sparker@gardenconservancy.org or 845.424.6500, ext. 214.

    Plant profile on roses and over view at Sissinghurst gardens , Sissinghurst, Kent June /July 2015 Rachel Warne

  • Wednesday, January 19, 10:00 am GMT – Memories of Sissinghurst and her Grandparents, Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson, with Juliet Nicolson, Online

    As one of the most famous gardens in the world, set in the ruins of a redbrick mansion where Elizabeth 1st stayed in 1573 for an exuberant weekend, Sissinghurst needs little introduction. Juliet Nicolson has known Sissinghurst all her life and her childhood memories of the creators of the garden, her grandparents Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson, remain vivid. Racing the length of the Yew Walk, leaping from the top of the Tower steps, helping dig the earth with Harold for his meticulous planting of the Spring Garden and watching Vita as she trained her beloved old roses over hazel hoops helped inform Juliet’s lifelong love of the place.

    Last summer, in defiance of every obstacle, Delos, the beautiful garden inspired by Vita and Harold’s love of Greece, finally brought its Mediterranean beauty to the Kentish Weald. This new ‘garden room’ is the realisation of a dream cherished by Juliet’s grandparents, but which was impossible to complete during their own lives due to lack of time and resources. Completed with the dedication of many, including the National Trust, the garden designer Dan Pearson, Head Gardener Troy Scott-Smith, and Sissinghurst’s stellar garden team, Juliet will outline the story of its evolution.

    Juliet Nicolson is a highly successful author, journalist and social historian . A House Full of Daughters, a poignant account of the women in the Nicolson family, is perhaps her best known work; though Frostquake, published last year and charting the extraordinary winter of 1962/3, was received with universal acclaim and appears in paperback this week!

    This Gardens Trust event, in conjunction with the Kent Gardens Trust, will take place Wednesday, January 19 at 10 am GMT, which is very early, but the recorded version is available almost immediately after and is available for £5 through Eventbrite. Register HERE. Attendees will be sent a Zoom link 2 days prior to the start of the talk, and again a few hours before the talk. A link to the recorded session (available for 1 week) will be sent shortly afterwards.