This is mainly because of the way they’ve been represented (or not) in maps, photographs and even The Kip, despite their being – in theory at least – right in the middle of the pleasure garden. Again it was a frenzied business, with decency and measure left behind; Ernest Wilson collected plants from cemetries, digging them up from graves, bringing them back as rarities to be grown on for his sponsors and for the newly developing nursery trade.

Both the species and its cultivar, Silver Ghost , have gained the Royal Horticultural Society’s Award of Garden Merit. On the night of 2-3rd September, 1907, Miss Willmott’s magnificent, antique-filled, wisteria-draped French villa burned. We are given a possible reason for her absence from the RHS medal ceremony that so shocked the Victorian gardening press. Whether this book rehabilitates her reputation and helps us understand her much better is difficult to say.

Eryngium 'Miss Willmott's Ghost' is stunning in the garden, and it's a terrific dried or cut flower . Yet, both posthumously and within her lifetime, she instead became known as a bitter, cantankerous and eccentric miser, and her reputation has been forever stained by the image of her maliciously seeding other people's gardens with thorns. This book is as much the story of Lawrence’s exploration of this material – much of it mouse-chewed and decayed – as it is of Wilmott.

I knew already that Miss Willmott’s Ghost was a biennial and wouldn’t flower before its second growing season. One of the most impressive summer plants you can grow in the UK, with unbelievable metallic silvery-blue leaves, flowers and stems. So named, as famous gardener, Miss Wilmott, used to walk around friends' gardens secretly scattering the seeds from her pocket.She was also a hybridizer (notably of narcissus) and an influential member of the Royal Horticultural Society, one of the first women allowed a role in that august society. Eryngiums also feature in beautiful coloured plates of a wonderful book of the complete flora of France, Switzerland and Belgium (including most plants in Europe) published in 1913 by Gaston Bonnier.

My editor very sensibly cut this section out of the book and I admit… it’s not absolutely necessary to know the following to make sense of Chapter Eight. I was amused, relieved, and a little embarrassed a few weeks back when a respected and long-standing Landscape Architect stated, in a meeting of industry leaders, something along the lines of ‘what . Author, Sandra Lawrence, has been granted unparalleled access to her archives, and with it has uncovered the secrets behind this thorniness. A shorter plant, its flowers are metallic blue and burr-shaped and, like my garden variety, protected by a silver ruff of viciously spiked bracts.giganteum)" with its large flower-heads: “ greatly appreciated for winter decorations, and although not highly coloured like many of the others, they make pretty bouquets arranged with Grasses, etc. Also, as the flower stems remain upright after flowering, it provides good shelter and habitat for over-wintering insects. I'm not always sure why a particular bon mot is important but more often than not, interesting enough to pursue in its own reading. It branches like a candelabra, with many metallic heads all dressed in silvery-white bracts, each resembling an Elizabethan ruff.

This post is for anyone who has read Miss Willmott’s Ghosts up to the end of Chapter Seven and just can’t get enough backstory. We are far from the Celtic festival of Samhain when people would light bonfires and wear costumes to keep the ghosts away. Apparently, the candied sweet was much sought after for coughs and colds - and as an aphrodisiac (what wasn't? Across the world there is evidence that pollinating animals have suffered via loss of habitats, disease and chemical misuse, creating a shortage of these vital creatures. I just hope this book changes that fact as she was a remarkable women with a fascinating story to tell and I'm very grateful to the author for bringing Miss Willmott to my attention!This was because many plants would be dormant during this time of the year and foliage would either be reduced or absent, making them easier to post. To learn more about the obsessive and brilliant Ellen Willmott I highly recommend Sandra Lawrence’s wonderful book, ‘ Miss Willmott’s Ghost: the extraordinary life and gardens of a forgotten genius’. Feet-on-the-ground is all very well, and there are plenty of opportunities to be sensible, thorough and precise.