A visit to Long Barn Gardens, Kent

Among the services offered by Perennial are a range of garden tours, many to gardens which are not often open to the public. Long Barn Gardens is one of those. Harold Nicolson and Vita Sackville-West bought Sissinghurst in 1930, but for 15 years before that they lived at Long Barn and it is interesting to look for the elements here which they later expanded and refined at Sissinghurst. On the edge of the village of Sevenoaks Weald, the garden has retained its long views over wooded countryside and has been the family home of Rebecca Lemonius and her husband who have lived here since 2007.

Like the house itself, the garden has developed as a kind of hotch-potch with bits added on over the years and there is a wonderful informality and intimacy about the place. Rebecca emphasises that although they garden with Vita Sackville-West’s ethos and style in mind, the emphasis is on the atmosphere which she created.

On arrival, we were greeted by Perennial staff and directed through a small courtyard complete with water feature and a display of succulents which also appear throughout the garden.

The unevenness of the garden results in a range of terraces and a sloping woodland leading down to a pond filled with water lilies.

At the end of June, the garden is filled with a profusion of plants, dominated at times by clumps of Valeriana. I personally found it one of the most peaceful gardens I have ever visited.

The orchard is now underplanted by meadow and this relaxed planting has found its way into what was once the rose garden, but now includes many other plants. A recent report indicates that butterfly numbers in England have dwindled dramatically since 2024, but Rebecca noted that at Long Barn they have actually seen an increase, which she puts down to their shift in planting.

The terraces feature a range of dry garden plants, including Aeoniums, Tulbaghias and succulents in pots. Today the row of conifers planted by Vita still survive. At the time she acknowledged that they would “look silly at first” but would later in the future “draw charabancs full of tourists from London”! Charabanc or not, this is a garden well worth the visit.

Vija V