The Delos garden at Sissinghurst Castle Garden in Kent has finally been completed 91 years after work began.
The garden was first imagined by a writer Vita Sackville-West and her diplomat husband Harold Nicolson in 1935.
The pair were inspired to create the Delos garden at Sissinghurst Castle Garden after visiting Greece, but struggled to make it work and later gave up.
Work to reimagine the Delos garden recommenced in 2018 and the final phase of the work has been completed and has been opened to the public. The garden inspired by Greece is expected to “perform well and look beautiful” during high temperatures, according to its gardeners.
Sackville-West and Nicolson were inspired to create a Greek garden after visiting the island of Delos – the legendary birthplace of gods Apollo and Artemis.
According to the National Trust, which now operates the gardens, the Kent climate and the site’s north-facing exposure scuppered the idea.
Sackville-West wrote in 1953 that “this has not been a success so far, but perhaps some day it will come right”.
Senior gardener Richard Gravett said “We really feel that the garden looks beautiful, that it’s thriving and that we have made it come right. I think that’s given us this wonderful permission and to go ahead and do this.”
Gravett said he had travelled to Delos and could “completely understand” why the couple had felt “compelled to conjure the Greek islands here at Sissinghurst”.
According to gardeners at the Grade I-listed site, Delios plants had continued to thrive in recent warm weather while others had shown signs of stress.
About 6,000 plants typically found in the Mediterranean have been planted, including pomegranate, cork oak and cypress trees, the National Trust said.
The first phase of the garden opened to the public in 2021.
Since then, a “ravine-like portal” filled with dry and shade tolerant plants has replaced a 1980s garage next to the Elizabethan Priest’s House.
Head gardener Troy Scott-Smith said his team “looked to plants found in the deep gorges and ravines of the Greek islands” and those found in other shaded areas.
