The focal point of the garden was originally four almond trees, encased in a canopy of the white rose, "Rosa mulliganii". By the 1960s, the weight of the roses had severely weakened the trees, and they were replaced with an iron arbour designed by Nigel Nicolson. Beneath the arbour is sited a Ming dynasty vase bought in Cairo. A lead statue of a Vestal Virgin, cast by Toma Rosandić from the wooden original which is in the Big Room, presides over the garden. Sackville-West intended that the statue should be enveloped by a weeping pear tree, "Pyrus salicifolia" 'Pendula', and the present tree was planted after her original was destroyed in the Great Storm of 1987. Lord considers the White Garden "the most ambitious and successful of its time, the most entrancing of its type".