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Sissinghurst: Portrait Of A Garden

The celebrated garden at Sissinghurst, created in the 1930s by Vita Sackville-West and her husband Harold Nicolson, has an unsurpassed romantic atmosphere. This book records the garden in all its seasons and moods, as well as the hosts of special plants and the inventive planting schemes. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Hardcover: 136 pages

Publisher: Harry N Abrams; First Edition edition (September 1990)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0810938073

ISBN-13: 978-0810938076

Product Dimensions: 0.9 x 9.5 x 10.5 inches

Shipping Weight: 2 pounds

Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)

Best Sellers Rank: #613,200 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #24 in Books > Crafts, Hobbies & Home > Gardening & Landscape Design > English Gardens #591 in Books > Crafts, Hobbies & Home > Gardening & Landscape Design > Garden Design

I have followed the Bloomsbury Group . . . Virginia Woolf, Vita Sackville-West, et al, over the years and, in the process, discovered and fell in love with Vita's famous garden at Sissinghurst. I also read the books written by her husband Harold and son, Nigel . . . the diaries and Portrait Of A Marriage, in which Sisssinghurt and the garden are nearly breathing entities, themselves. This is likely the best coffee table book on the garden, filled with color photos and history of the estate. I ordered it and used it in conjunction with reading Adam Nicholson's Sissinghurst: An Unfinished History which I recommend highly. It is not a gardening book but rather a compilation of biography, history, and sociology centered in the landscape of Kent, England, around the world famous estate that has become known as Sissinghurst. It is also a revolutionary polemic against the misuse of our land--arable and otherwise--by the gurus of modern technological farming whose insistent and arrogant credo (always focused on monetary profit) is that they know what's best for our planet and to hell with Nature's natural processes. If you love the land and the glory of Nature; if you love our planet and are concerned about its health and welfare; if you would like to know what Adam Nicholson and others who share his views feel can be done about protecting and preserving them, then I highly recommed that you read this book, as well.

I enjoyed the photos in the book, although they are now 20 or so years in the past and I have always enjoyed reading about Sissinghurst Castle Garden. The text of the book was not much different than most books about a particular garden in that they give a general history and then talk about who lived there and how the gardens came to be. I feel that because this is an author writing about someone elses garden instead of a garden they were involved with that you lose most of the personal aspects that can really be the highlight of a book about a garden. An interesting book to browse through and of course they end it with a chapter about the White Garden, which tends to be the most famous of Sissinghursts many features.

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