Naming of the Rose: Ellen Willmott

Rosa 'Ellen Willmott' a Hybrid Tea from 1936, flowering in the Rose Gardens at Sissinghurst

This year is the 150th Anniversary of Ellen Willmott's birth, a great Victorian gardener, and more especially horticulturalist, and contemporary of Gertrude Jekyll. Ellen Willmott was born in 1858, and moved to Warley Place, near Brentwood in Essex in her teens with her family in 1875. Alongside her Mother and her sister Rose who later married into the Berkeley family of Spetchley Park in Worcestershire, they gardened the grounds at Warley Place, where Ellen developed a keen interest in plants and horticulture. It is said that for her 21st birthday she had sought and was given permission to create an alpine garden within the grounds.

Ellen Willmott 1858 - 1934

In her career as an amateur horticulturalist, she bred many plants and sponsored plant hunters across the world to collect and bring plants to her. These vast expenditures in part, on her death in 1934, led to her estate being sold to recover debts, and permission was sought to turn the property into a housing estate! Thankfully many of the plants she had collected and bred were sent to Spetchley Park, and planning permission was denied. Subsequently the property fell into ruin, and only parts of the garden remain. The property is now let to the Essex Wildlife Trust who operate it as a wildlife reserve. The reserve is to be opened to the public for a 'Heritage Weekend' on Saturday 13th and Sunday 14th September, 2008 to commemorate anniversary of Ellen Willmott’s birth and also the 30th anniversary of the reserve being opened to the public.

Ceratostigma willmottianum; discovered by Ernest Henry Wilson, who also named Corylopsis willmottiae and Rosa willmottiae in honour of Ellen Willmott.

Over 60 plants are named after her or Warley Place, and can be recognised by the species ephipet of 'willmottianum', 'willmottiae' or 'warleyense' in Botanical Latin nomenclature, or as a variety name such as Aethionema 'Warley Rose' which is also known as Aethionema x warleyense 'Warley Rose'. This particular plant was a naturally occurring variant of the species and was found by Ellen Willmott at Warley Place and was given the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit in 1913.

'Rosa Gallica' an illustration by Alfred Parson taken from Ellen Willmott's 'The Genus Rosa'

Amongst Ellen Willmott many achievements is the one of the finest books on Roses written; 'The Genus Rosa', illustrated by Alfred Parsons . In 1897, in honour of Queen Victoria's Jubilee Year, Ellen Willmott alongside Gertrude Jekyll was awarded RHS Victoria Medal of Honour. As she aged it is said she became increasingly canterkerous and eccentric, and one of my favourite stories attributed to a gardener, is that she would secretively sow Eryngium giganteum amongst the borders of gardens she visited, where it would germinate and flower when least expected to the suprise of the owner and became known as 'Miss Willmott's Ghost'.

Eryngium giganteum 'Miss Willmott's Ghost'

There is an interesting article on BBC Radio 4's Women's Hour entitled 'Forgotten Gardeners: Ellen Willmott' if you would like to listen to it, here.