Women Who Shaped Garden History
Ellen Willmott was one of the most formidable and eccentric plantswomen in history. At her estate, Warley Place in Essex, she grew over 100,000 plant species and employed 104 gardeners. She was among the first women elected to the Linnean Society and funded plant-collecting expeditions around the world.
Willmott inherited a substantial fortune and devoted it almost entirely to plants and gardens. In addition to Warley Place, she maintained gardens at Tresserve in the French Alps and at Boccanegra on the Italian Riviera. She was a skilled cultivator with an encyclopedic knowledge of plant taxonomy.
Willmott's magnum opus was The Genus Rosa (1910–1914), a lavishly illustrated monograph on roses that remains a standard reference. She commissioned watercolor illustrations by Alfred Parsons and employed some of the finest botanical artists of the era. She won over 60 gold medals from the Royal Horticultural Society, more than any other woman of her time.
She was famous for her habit of secretly scattering seeds of Eryngium giganteum (giant sea holly) in the gardens of friends and acquaintances. The plant is still sometimes called “Miss Willmott's Ghost.”
Willmott spent her fortune more rapidly than it could sustain, and her later years were marked by financial difficulty. She gradually dismissed her gardeners and sold parts of her collection. Warley Place fell into decline after her death and is now managed as a nature reserve, with remnants of her planting still visible among the ruins.