A Virginia couple marked their 10th wedding anniversary with a two-week tour of 14 public and private gardens across England, transforming a shared interest into an immersive experience through historic and modern green spaces.
The journey started in Kent, moved through Sussex and the Cotswolds, and ended in London. Each day focused on one garden. The wife, who leads the Garden Club of Virginia’s Historic Garden Week, had never taken a vacation centered solely on gardens, despite organizing similar trips for others.
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From the page to the path
Their route was influenced as much by literature as by location. Before visiting Sissinghurst, the wife had read In Your Garden, a 1951 collection of columns by Vita Sackville-West, the garden’s designer. Sackville-West’s writing described plants with personality, favoring those that were bold and uninhibited. The book, originally published in The Observer, served as both a guide to the garden and an introduction to its creator’s approach.
Nearby, Great Dixter provided a different perspective. Christopher Lloyd’s Succession Planting for Year-Round Pleasure introduced the concept of layered planting, ensuring color and texture across all seasons. Photographs in the book showed the same garden beds in different seasons, inspiring the couple’s own yard. Lloyd inherited the 15th-century manor in 1977 and turned it into a space for experimental gardening. His impact remains visible in the estate’s lively, evolving borders.
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Their favorite private garden, Copper House, was found through the National Garden Scheme’s app. Owner Eleanor Cochrane gave them a private tour, walking them through lively plantings where Verbena bonariensis and cranesbill geraniums overflowed paths in late June. When she showed them her composting system, the husband, who had recently built a similar setup, asked detailed questions for nearly an hour. Later, they purchased Rod Weston’s A Garden’s Guide to Composting Techniques, a manual covering methods from basic layering to hot and cold composting.
As they traveled, books shaped their expectations, and the gardens deepened their understanding of the texts. A passage about lavishness in Sackville-West’s writing now carried the scent of Sissinghurst’s white garden. Lloyd’s succession planting diagrams made more sense after seeing Great Dixter’s layered borders. Even the composting guide felt more tangible after walking through Copper House’s well-maintained piles.
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The trip was more than an anniversary celebration. It showed that gardens, like relationships, evolve—sometimes messy, but always grounded in something enduring.
