What is the full name of the person that is married to the woman noted vertical dimensions in her planting?
Although the estate as a whole is 450 acres (1.8 km2), the gardens themselves occupy only 5 acres (0.020 km2). Anne Scott-James sets out the principles of the design: "a garden of formal structure, of a private and secret nature, truly English in character, and plant[ed] with romantic profusion". As gardeners and landscapers, both Sackville-West and Nicolson were amateurs. Nicolson largely undertook the design and Sackville-West the planting. The landscape is designed as a series of "garden rooms", each with a different character of colour or theme, the enclosures being high clipped hedges and pink brick walls. The rooms and "doors" are so arranged as to offer glimpses into other parts of the garden.
Sackville-West described the overall design: "a combination of long axial walks, usually with terminal points, and the more intimate surprise of small geometrical gardens opening off them, rather as the rooms of an enormous house would open off the corridors". Nicolson considered the garden's success was down to this "succession of privacies: the forecourt, the first arch, the main court, the tower arch, the lawn, the orchard. All a series of escapes from the world, giving the impression of cumulative escape". In the White Garden and along some paths in other gardens, the flower beds were set off from the paths by closely clipped low square hedges of box.
Sackville-West's planting philosophy is summed up in the advice from one of her gardening columns in the Observer: "Cram, cram, cram, every chink and cranny". Gardener Sarah Raven (Adam Nicolson's wife) notes the use of the vertical dimension, as well as horizontal paths, in her planting. Assisted by the number of walls still standing from the Tudor manor, and constructing more of her own, Sackville-West remarked "I see we are going to have heaps of wall space for climbing things."Old roses formed the centrepiece of the planting, and their history appealed to her as much as their appearance did: "there is nothing scrimpy or stingy about them. They have a generosity which is as desirable in plants as in people", and ultimately around 200 varieties were grown at Sissinghurst.
Adam Nicolson