Where did the person who is re-making the Sissinghurst garden serve before taking on the project?
John Vass, appointed head gardener in 1939, left in 1957. Called up to the RAF in 1941, he had urged that the hedges be maintained, confident that everything else in the garden could be restored after the war. Ronald Platt succeeded him from 1957 to 1959. In 1959 Pamela Schwerdt and Sibylle Kreutzberger were appointed as joint replacements. They remained at Sissinghurst until 1991, their contributions, "as much, if not more than Vita's, mak[ing] it the most admired and popular 20th-century garden in England". In 2006 they were awarded the Royal Horticultural Society's Victoria Medal of Honour for their work at Sissinghurst. The pair were followed as head gardener by Sarah Cook, who was succeeded by Alexis Datta.In 2014, Troy Scott Smith, previously head gardener at Bodnant, was appointed – the first male head gardener since the 1950s. He has written of the challenges of maintaining the garden "in the manner of its creator, after they have gone". In 2018 Scott Smith announced plans to extend the flowering season at Sissinghurst beyond the autumn period established by Schwerdt and Kreutzberger, into the winter months, allowing for year-round opening of the garden. The gardening writer and landscape critic Tim Richardson, writing in 2015, described Scott Smith's re-making of the garden: "Sissinghurst, more than any other garden I know, inspires extremes of emotion. There is a feeling that this is Britain's leading garden – and so, arguably, the world's, a status that has proven to be both a great boon and an albatross around its neck". Scott Smith's plans include the reinstatement of every species of rose known to have been grown by Sackville-West. A new history of the garden by Sarah Raven was published in 2014. Sissinghurst continues to exert considerable influence, being described as a "Mecca" and a "place of pilgrimage" for gardeners from around the world and encouraging many imitators.
Bodnant