White Garden, Sissinghurst Castle

In all the years I have been visiting Sissinghurst Castle, I have never seen the White Garden look so lush; it was a ‘sea of white fluffiness’ and its loveliness took one’s breath away. 

The White Garden is an enclosed garden, laid out in a formal pattern, with clipped borders of box framing brick herringbone pathways, punctuated by box cubes. These features provide structure and act as a framework and a contrast to the white flowers and grey foliage within their boundaries.

The focal point is the central gazebo, which is covered by the highly fragrant white rambler rose (Rosa mulliganii) – now finished flowering but later in the year produces rose hips. Beneath sits a maroon-coloured waist-high urn (1930s), planted with Thumbergia alata (a cream-coloured Black-eyed Susan).

This summer, the ‘sea of white fluffiness’ is due, I suspect, to all the rain we have had, but also to the clever planting of the tall annuals, Ammi majus and probably Ammi visnaga, (False Queen Anne’s Lace/Bishop’s flower), umbellifers with white domed flower clusters.  These act as fillers and are woven throughout the herbaceous planting to great effect. 

Their height adds another dimension, blending well with other tall plants which include the grey-leafed biennials – the Scotch Thistle, Onopordon acanthium and the tall spires of creamy-flowered Verbascum ‘Gainsborough’. 

Wandering along the paths I noticed white roses and also white-blush-pink roses and lilies, various groupings of daisies, white Valerian, the striking Eryngium ‘Miss Wilmott’s Ghost’, Silene vulgaris (Bladder Campion), Achillea ‘The Pearl’, white-flowered Lychnis coronaria and the grey-leafed edging plant Stachys lanata, with lovely mauve flowers. Various Verbascum groupings wove through the above and Cosmos plants were also spotted, ready to flower in the next week or two.

The statue of the Vestal Virgin looked beautiful, sheltered by the silver-grey weeping pear, Pyrus salicifolia ‘Pendula’, a favourite of mine and a very suitable tree for a small garden.

Throughout the garden the plant groupings were repeated, to create an harmonious effect. In the north-east corner, a pergola framed by a white wisteria that’s now finished flowering, provides a place to rest and contemplate. 

Before exiting the garden beneath the archway that leads into the Delos Garden, I spotted one of my all-time favourite clematis framing the wall, Clematis texensis ‘Kaiu’ which also partly frames my own garden pergola.  This vigorous clematis has small and delicate, pure-white, bell-shaped flowers during summer and looked just perfect flowering against the red brickwork.   An absolutely charming climbing plant for the exit archway of this very beautiful garden!

Anna L