laire Margetts is a senior gardener and the National Trust’s first-ever Sissinghurst Scholar, undertaking an 18-month programme designed to cultivate future head gardeners. “Vita Sackville-West wrote that ‘climbers are among the most useful plants in any garden’,” says Claire. “I couldn’t agree more, and I could happily extol the virtues of any of the hundreds of clematis and climbing roses that adorn the medieval walls, farm buildings, homespun chestnut
