Sissinghurst: Portrait of a Garden
October 23, 2013 6:00 pm - 7:00 pmNew York School of Interior Design: New York City, NY
Presented by the Garden Conservancy.
The garden at Sissinghurst Castle in Kent, owned and managed by the UK's National Trust, is one of England’s most famous and influential landscapes, drawing nearly 200,000 visitors a year. Created in the 1930s by garden writer and poet Vita Sackville-West and her husband Harold Nicolson, an author and diplomat, the garden rests on the site of an estate dating back to the Middle Ages, originally owned by the de Saxingherste family. Still visible are the remains of Sissinghurst Castle, built by Sir John Baker in the 1550s.
A stopover for English royalty as well as an 18th-century prison, the castle was in a dilapidated state when Sackville-West and Nicolson purchased the ruins and the surrounding farmland in 1930 and began their great project, developing the property into a peaceful retreat as well as a working farm. Nicolson was responsible for the basic layout and structures of the garden while Sackville-West focused on filling it with a remarkable collection of plants. The garden was created as a series of rooms, each with its own color scheme or theme, providing glimpses from one space to the next as visitors pass through connective entryways. The National Trust took over management of Sissinghurst in 1967.
Alexis Datta (photo, right) recently retired from Sissinghurst after twenty-two years tending the garden, the last nine of them as Head Gardener. Her total of forty-two years as a professional gardener also includes work at various other British gardens, both public and private, before joining the National Trust in 1983.
Alexis will share the history of Sissinghurst Castle Garden, its creators and philosophy, and the process of maintaining such an exceptional landscape over the course of a typical year. Says Alexis, “While the garden has evolved since its inception in 1930, it is still gardened dynamically.”
Read more about Alexis Datta in a "horticultural who's who" profile from the March issue of Gardens Illustrated magazine.
Date and time
Wednesday, October 23, 2013
5:30 p.m. Check-in and registration
6 - 7:00 p.m. Lecture
Registration
$25 Members of the Garden Conservancy
$35 General admission
Register online at www.gardenconservancy.org or call the Garden Conservancy at
845-424-6500.
