Garden division: Creating separate spaces for a more organized and efficient gardening experience
In the heart of Kent, England, lies the picturesque Sissinghurst Castle, a historical estate that boasts a captivating garden designed by Vita Sackville-West and her husband Harold Nicolson in the 1930s. The garden, a series of intimate, themed compartments, or 'rooms', offers a unique sensory experience that delights visitors with its exuberant planting and deliberate use of colour.
The garden is laid out as a series of axial walks, ending with statues or garden features, from which enclosed garden compartments—garden rooms—open out. This compartmentalization creates a sense of discovery and intimacy as one moves through different thematic spaces. Each garden room often embraces a seasonal or specific theme, enhancing the visitor's sensory experience as they transition from one room to another.
A defining feature of Sissinghurst's garden rooms is their strong, deliberate use of colour schemes. Each room often centres around a particular colour palette or dominant hues that reinforce its theme. For instance, the White Garden is planted almost exclusively with white and silver-coloured plants, creating a monochromatic and serene effect. Nearby, the Cottage Garden contrasts by favouring warm colours such as orange and yellow, which provide vibrancy and warmth.
While the original design and structural elements remain intact, the gardens continue to be updated with new plants to keep them vibrant and current. This includes careful attention to plant combinations, height, texture, and seasonal interest, ensuring harmony and continuity within each room.
The evergreen walls that frame the garden rooms offer stoic structure and calm contrast to the exuberant planting. These walls, along with yew hedges and topiary structures, enclose each room, allowing it to display a unique atmosphere and planting style.
The style of gardening with discrete garden rooms may feel out of touch with the naturalistic aesthetic, but it can still be exuberant, original, and full of life. This approach encourages exploration, seasonal variety, and a rich sensory experience grounded in both aesthetic beauty and botanical harmony.
For small gardens, consider the garden as a single 'room' and maintain a concise colour palette. The complexity in a small garden comes from form and texture, not from a variety of colours. Dividing a garden into 'rooms' or zones creates structure and opportunities for reveals and journeys as you move from one to the next. In small gardens, it's crucial to choose and adhere to a single theme.
In essence, the design principles behind Sissinghurst's garden rooms centre on creating a series of intimate, themed compartments, each with carefully controlled colour palettes and planting styles, enclosed to form distinct zones linked by axial walkways. This approach encourages exploration, seasonal variety, and a rich sensory experience grounded in both aesthetic beauty and botanical harmony.
- The garden design at Sissinghurst Castle, utilizing axial walks and enclosed garden rooms, creates a journey of discovery, where each compartment offers a unique sensory experience through its thematic spaces and deliberate use of color.
- In small gardens, follow the principles of Sissinghurst by dividing the space into discrete 'rooms' or zones, thereby creating structure and a rich sensory experience, while maintaining a concise color palette and focusing on form and texture for complexity.
