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Vita Sackville-West @thegardenvsw.bsky.social · 16h

It comes into Shakespeare, an honour accorded to few private dwellings by our national poet: ‘How far is it, my lord, to Berkeley now?
I am a stranger here in Gloucestershire:
These high wild hills and rough uneven ways’ [Richard II 2.3.1-4]

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Vita Sackville-West @thegardenvsw.bsky.social · 16h

For the first time in its long history Berkeley Castle will be opened to the public next year (1955). It is nearly 1000 years old. It has played its part in English history. #gardening
historic-uk.com/HistoryMagazin… thetudortravelguide.com/the-a-z-of-tud…

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Vita Sackville-West @thegardenvsw.bsky.social · 16h

We are replacing our bad herbaceous borders, hitherto stuffed with poor specimens, by flowering shrubs which entail far less work and are far more interesting to grow and observe.
berkeley-castle.com/gardens

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Vita Sackville-West @thegardenvsw.bsky.social · 16h

There was a terrace at Berkeley, under one of the great walls. It was a wide terrace, and it had been used to provide a herbaceous border. In the old days when many gardeners had been employed, staking and weeding, it probably made a good effect. Not so today. #gardening

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Vita Sackville-West @thegardenvsw.bsky.social · 16h

So far as one can ever feel sure about any question of taste, always a dangerous venture, I feel almost sure that we are travelling along the right lines. We are gradually abolishing the messy little bedding out system and replacing it with generous lawns of our good green turf.

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Vita Sackville-West @thegardenvsw.bsky.social · 16h

Harmony must be achieved somehow. And, as a last imperative consideration, what will give least trouble in maintenance? We have reached the era of simplification in #gardening.
berkeley-castle.com/visit

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Vita Sackville-West @thegardenvsw.bsky.social · 17h

What will look right? What colours will agree with the fabric, be it this ruddy, rusty splendour of Berkeley or the raw red brick of the housing estate? What shall we avoid and what select? #gardening
theenglishgarden.telegraph.co.uk/expert-advice/…

https://theenglishgarden.telegraph.co.uk/expert-advice/…

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Vita Sackville-West @thegardenvsw.bsky.social · 17h

It is not everyone who can dispose of terraces falling away beneath towering walls and buttresses #gardening

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Vita Sackville-West @thegardenvsw.bsky.social · 17h

A stranger myself in Gloucestershire, I had been asked by the present owner to discuss with him the redemption of the neglected #garden.
#gardening
web.english.upenn.edu/~dwallace/euro… historichouses.org/house/berkeley��

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Vita Sackville-West @thegardenvsw.bsky.social · 1d

10 October ‘54 Down in the West Country stands a castle, savage, remote, barbaric, brooding, like a frown across the jade-green water meadows towards the hills of Wales. This castle has always preserved its secretive quality. #gardening
berkeley-castle.com

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Vita Sackville-West @thegardenvsw.bsky.social · 2d

There is Pinocchio himself, pink, tight in his cluster. He has a central flower with lots of smaller flowers hugging round him. He is rightly named Pinocchio because in Italian pinocchio means a fir-cone, something lovingly packed, nestling close.

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Vita Sackville-West @thegardenvsw.bsky.social · 2d

Some of the floribundas we can now order and grow successfully in our gardens. There are the Pinocchios.

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Vita Sackville-West @thegardenvsw.bsky.social · 2d

Masquerade, a very strong grower, apparently immune from many of the troubles that affect roses: black spot, mildew, and all the rest of the horrible tribe pf spores and aphids that we have to contend with.

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Vita Sackville-West @thegardenvsw.bsky.social · 2d

Masquerade seems to be becoming fairly well known, and I don’t wonder. It is a real catch-the-eye, throwing clusters of pink, red, yellow and orange all on the same stalk and at the same time. The effect is as gay as any flag. #gardening

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Vita Sackville-West @thegardenvsw.bsky.social · 2d

This week I would like to indicate some of the queer mixtures this race supplies. Masquerade, for instance. #gardening www.peterbealesroses.com/masquerade-p...

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Vita Sackville-West @thegardenvsw.bsky.social · 2d

9 October ‘55 To continue my remarks on the Floribunda roses. Last week I confined myself to the self-coloured: the dark red, the pink, the yellow, and the curious shrimp-pink of my little favourite, Fashion. #gardening
cockersroses.co.uk/shop/ols/all...

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Vita Sackville-West @thegardenvsw.bsky.social · 5d

Then there is little Fashion, pretty as can be in the pointed shrimp-pink bud and just as pretty when the bud opens into the never vulgar, slightly scented flower. Fashion is a darling, a floribunda for anybody with the appreciation of shape, colour and subtlety in a rose.

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Vita Sackville-West @thegardenvsw.bsky.social · 5d

And went on producing its great flowers mixing themselves in amongst the grey-green leaves of the shrubby Californian poppy Romneya coulteri, a perfect combination of pink and grey. August Seebauer is not so well known as it should be. #gardening sissinghurstcastle.wordpress.com/2015/10/22/las…

https://sissinghurstcastle.wordpress.com/2015/10/22/las…

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Vita Sackville-West @thegardenvsw.bsky.social · 5d

For a good yellow, plant Goldilocks, and if you want a huge pink, plant August Seebauer, a surprise to me when it first exploded in June. . . #gardening
sissinghurstcastle.wordpress.com/2015/06/18/t...

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Vita Sackville-West @thegardenvsw.bsky.social · 5d

The floribundas have all the virtues of the old ployanthas, with many virtues added. For a rich dark red, plant Frensham and Dusky Maiden and Donald Prior and Alain. #gardening
sissinghurstcastle.wordpress.com/2015/10/22/l...

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Vita Sackville-West @thegardenvsw.bsky.social · 5d

No new villa garden was without them. The Poulsens had their virtues, their undeniable virtues. They flowered continuously and they made a show. What a show they made! Bright pink, bright scarlet, they were as inescapable as they were ubiquitous. #gardening

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Vita Sackville-West @thegardenvsw.bsky.social · 5d

We used to know them or their originators as the polyantha roses. #gardening
historicroses.org/polyanthas/
www.rhs.org.uk/plants/roses...

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Vita Sackville-West @thegardenvsw.bsky.social · 5d

Oct ‘55 I should like, with or without permission, to write two successive articles about the type of rose now called floribunda. It is too large a subject to cram into one article, for there can be no doubt that the floribundas are going to prove an immense value. #gardening

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Vita Sackville-West @thegardenvsw.bsky.social · 6d

The Gean, or Prunus avium, is not to be confused with the Bird Cherry, Prunus padus. There are also cultivated forms of the Bird Cherry. I can speak only of P. padus Watereri, which possesses what my nose tells me is a peculiarly honeyed scent. #gardening
www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/trees-wo

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Vita Sackville-West @thegardenvsw.bsky.social · 6d

But we could still afford modestly to set our own wild cherry in a chosen place at the eastern or the western corner of the garden: I say eastern or western because the reddening leaves would then catch either the morning or the evening light, sunrise or sunset. #gardening

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