The Johnston Collection

Vita Sackville West and her garden at Sissinghurst with Rosemary Irving

Discover the extraordinary life of Vita Sackville West and her famous garden at Sissinghurst in Kent.

Seasons & Programs

Event Details

Category

Seasons & Programs

Event Starts

Jan 29, 2026 14:00

Event Ends

Jan 29, 2026 15:30

Venue

The Johnston Collection

Location

192 Wellington Parade, East Melbourne VIC, Australia

Join Rosemary Irving for an illustrated talk examining the extraordinary life of Vita Sackville West and her famous garden at Sissinghurst in Kent. Novelist, poet, journalist, and immortalised as the inspiration for Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, Sackville-West combined literary accomplishment with a bold reimagining of garden design.

In partnership with her husband Harold Nicolson, she transformed the ruins of Sissinghurst Castle into a sequence of garden ‘rooms’ that redefined modern horticulture, later chronicled in her influential Observer column, In Your Garden. Today, her achievements endure both on the page and in the landscape, with Sissinghurst among the National Trust’s most cherished sites.

Born and educated in Melbourne, Rosemary Irving holds post-graduate qualifications in Veterinary Science. Having worked as a vet in rural Victoria, England and Canada, she is now a wool producer in Gippsland, a keen gardener, and photographer with a great interest in exploring English gardens.

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