Miss Willmott’s Ghosts: The Extraordinary Life and Gardens of a Forgotten Genius by Sandra Lawrence
In 1897, during Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations, all the luminaries of the horticultural world were invited to the Hotel Windsor in Westminster for the awarding of the Royal Horticultural Society’s highest honor, the Victoria medal. There would be 60 medals, one for each year of the Queen’s reign, and two of the winners were women. One was Gertrude Jekyll, famous collaborator of Edwin Lutyens, whose gardens are still famous today. The other was Miss Ellen Willmott, who was famous for her alpines, her bulbs and her talent for growing the ungrowable.
On the day, Jekyll was there to receive her honor, but she was the only woman present. Willmott had not bothered to show up.
