I value Adam Nicolson's thorough description of the efforts he and his family have taken to bring farming back to Sissinghurst, and thereby fold the past into the present - making a working farm and orchards a part of Sissinghurst again in conjunction with the famous garden. The resistance that Adam encountered to this idea from its conception - the outright rudeness of Sissinghurst's employees (so much for British reserve!) - the years it's taken to get the plan going, and the necessity of explaining his reasons over and over to so many people, including mocking journalists and other commentators - seems totally ridiculous. The National Trust and the residents and employees of Sissinghurst are extremely lucky that he didn't just throw up his hands and say, the hell with it. (But I don't think the grandson of Vita Sackville-West would ever back down from a challenge.)
I admired the detailed history of Sissinghurst and the Kentish Weald that the author provides. But to me, these portions of the book are not quite as interesting as Nicolson's interactions with the National Trust personnel, and the way he dealt with the prejudices of Sissinghurst employees to a working farm close to the gardens and their objections to incorporating the farm's produce into the restaurant's menu. For example, my preference is for the sections of the book that discussed the tenant farmers of V. Sackville-West's and Harold Nicolson's time, and beyond, than the section of the book detailing the lives of the residents of Sissinghurst during its Tudor period.
What I think I will also remember about this book is learning about the unhappy life of Nigel Nicolson. The author provides some vignettes of his famous father that were quite surprising to me, as I thought, as most outsiders might from Nigel Nicolson's books and his television appearances, etc. -that his life was quite full and satisfactory. This was not so, unfortunately, and I feel so very sorry that he was never quite able to find a "liveable" middle ground *outside* of his famous parents' lives, and that he suffered deeply from depression. The picture Adam provides of his withdrawn father (an emotional and physical withdrawal that Nigel recognized and regretted, but was seemingly unable to change) is a chilling one. However, this picture is not presented unsympathetically, which proves his son's generosity and forgiveness. I hope Adam will give us more of this, perhaps in a memoir of his father, or by his participation in a biography of Nigel, as there appears to be another layer to Nigel's life story which is only touched on here.