An underrated horticulturist, not a spiteful gardener

I owe Miss Willmott an apology. At least I would if she were still alive, because I believe I’ve bought into a horticultural legend connected to the plant she’s known for that amounts to historical character assassination.

I’ve known Miss Willmott the plant for much longer than I’ve known anything about Miss Willmott the person, and once you see her — the plant, that is — you’re unlikely to forget her. 

Miss Willmott’s Ghost is the common name for giant sea holly (Eryngium giganteum). Reaching to between 2 to 4 feet tall and occasionally taller, this silver flowering thistlelike biennial is instantly recognizable for its color and form and is a stunning feature in a border. It appreciates full sun and good drainage and is hardy in zones 4 to 7.

As the flowers age, the seedheads turn dark but remain surrounded by silver calyxes, creating a striking, perhaps somewhat ghostly, look.

But the plant is far less interesting than the woman it is named for. Ellen Willmott, a British horticulturist, lived from 1858 to 1934 at Warley Place, her family’s famous house and gardens in Essex. Willmott was mostly a self-taught gardener, according to her biographer Sandra Lawrence, “because girls didn’t get that kind of education.”

Nonetheless, in 1897, she was awarded the Royal Horticultural Society’s most prestigious tribute, the Victoria Medal of Honour, although not showing up to receive the award probably contributed to her reputation as a difficult character.

Willmott was known as a gun-toting, grumpy eccentric who was somehow both a miser and a spendthrift, Lawrence said, but mostly she was a thorn in the side of the then-male-dominated horticulture scene. Even famed Great Dixter gardener Christopher Lloyd had harsh, although I suspect cheeky, words for her in a 2005 column.

“Eryngium giganteum is popularly known as Miss Willmott’s Ghost, perhaps because she was pale and prickly. It is said that the Garden Society of England was made all-male so as to exclude her,” he wrote.

The more widely held belief for the plant’s namesake is that she rather maliciously scattered seeds of the plant, which still grows at Warley Place, in the gardens of the unknowing crowd who had run afoul of her. 

If it seems too convenient that a prickly plant with ghostlike characteristics might be “haunting” gardeners, that’s because it is, according to Lawrence. In fact, the first reference to the myth that the author could find was in 1980.

Frankly, I’d be thrilled if this great plant showed up in my garden. If Willmott really did seed it around Britain, perhaps it is proof of horticultural prowess rather than malicious intent.

Lawrence has a theory about that too: Willmott wasn’t being prickly; she was heartbroken because her lover was getting married the day after the award ceremony. 

It seems likely that we’ve been misled about the derivation of Miss Willmott’s Ghost’s name, but I’m all for embracing it anyway, not as a condemnation of a spiteful woman, but as an honor to an under appreciated horticulturist.