A Short History of Flowers by Advolly Richmond in my Cottage Garden this week.
“Regardless of how they arrived in Britain, the true origin and story of each of the flowers in this book go a long way back to other countries, even continents. Their stories are filled with tales of adventure, intrigue, piracy and, even, obsession and duplicity…”
🌿 Advolly Richmond, A Short History of Flowers
Garden Historian & Author
Many of you will recognize my lovely guest today from her wonderful presentations on the popular UK show, Gardeners’ World!
But TV filming is not all that this accomplished garden historian has going on:
“Advolly Richmond is an independent researcher in the history of plants, gardens and their importance in society. Based in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, she has an MA in Garden History from the University of Bristol, is qualified to RHS Level 3 in Practical Horticulture, and is a Fellow of the Linnean Society…
Advolly lectures on a variety of garden history subjects from the 16th through to the 20th century. She teaches the Social and Cultural History of Italian Renaissance Gardens at the Oxford Department for Continuing Education.”1
Not only does Advolly teach on television and at Oxford, but she has written a marvelous book to teach us all more about the fascinating stories of the flowers that grow in our gardens!
A Short History of Flowers: The stories that make our gardens by Advolly Richmond was a finalist for Gardening Book of the Year, 2024. It contains 200 pages of rich descriptions of the discovery and use of flowers, Alstroemerias to Zinnias, and also their connections to botanical greats like Gertrude Jekyll and William Robinson. It is filled with beautiful illustrations by Sarah Jane Humphrey.
Advolly has generously agreed to share about her path to being a garden historian, which stories of female plant hunters she most enjoyed researching, and which overlooked historic UK gardens we should put on our visit list.
Welcome Advolly!
Advolly Richmond at Plas Brondanw Gardens. Photo from Gardeners’ World
Julie: I would love to hear about how you became interested in garden history.
Advolly:In my mid-30s I was working as a buyer at an automotive company. At some point I realised that this really wasn’t what I wanted to be doing for the rest of my life or in fact for the next couple of years. I decided that by the time I was 40 I would be on a different career path. At that time, in the UK, we still had evening classes for anyone who wanted to expand their career prospects or to simply take up a new hobby.
So, I enrolled on a course in horticulture. I had this crazy romantic idea that I might become a gardener. I was convinced that I had found my calling in gardening and decided to make my training official and gained my Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) level 2 in the Principles and Practices of Horticulture & then onto level 3 with the intention of working as professional gardener in 2007. However, my interest in plant and garden history was piqued during my studies. One of my lecturers was very keen on the plant and garden history and our plant identification sessions were peppered with little historic nuggets. I was hooked.
I then went on to do a foundation degree in Heritage Horticulture followed by my MA in Garden History and as they say the rest is history. I love my work. But oddly enough I really did not enjoy history at school at all. I remember the sheer tedium of trying to care about the Egyptians, Tudors and the Stuarts etc and now look at me devouring everything and anything from Queen Hatshepsut’s ancient plant collections to Elizabethan and Jacobean gardens. It’s quite amusing to think that my working life now revolves around so many different histories.
Advolly Richmond filming for Gardeners’ World at Plas Brondanw. Photo by Gardeners’ World
Julie: Do you think you are drawn more to the botanical histories of places, plants or people? Or perhaps it is their intersection which is thrilling?
Advolly:I really don’t think that you can separate them, as I discovered while researching and writing my book. People are the connection to the places and their plants. For centuries gardening and garden history has reflected changes in society and of course any changes were, and still are to an extent, influenced by many external factors such as politics, religion, wealth, status, travel and even conflict.
A relatable example is the snowdrop Galanthus plicatus, which is indigenous to the Crimea region, and although it had been recognised since the sixteenth century it caught the attention of soldiers fighting in the Crimean War in the 1850s. Soon after bulbs made their way from the battlefield back to Britain and over the years G. plicatus has produced some lovely selections such as the delightfully waffled G. plicatus ‘Diggory’.
A Short History of Flowers by Advolly Richmond in my Spring Bed at Havenwood.
Julie: You share many wonderful stories about female plant hunters and botanists. Which female story(s) do you find the most inspiring?
Advolly:Oh, that’s a tough one indeed. Curiously it was only when I began to review the final selection of plants that I realised just how many female figures I had included one way or another. I think the most inspirational has to be a tie between three women:
The 18th century botanist Jeanne Baret (1740 -1807) was the first woman to sail around the world, and in the process collected the Bougainvillea.
Then there was the botanical illustrator Elizabeth Blackwell (1699 -1758) who took up painting and engraving in order to support her family and get her good for nothing husband out of debtor’s prison.
Last but by no means least is the late 19th, early 20th century African-American folk artist Clementine Hunter (c.1886 -1988) who despite being illiterate taught herself to paint her beloved Zinnias in her 50s. Her first painting ‘Bowl of Zinnias’ was exhibited in the Louvre, Paris in 2013. Hunter’s work is now very much sought after.
Clementine Hunter, Bowl of Zinnias, 1939, oil
What is evident in the stories I share is that regardless of their very different backgrounds, the one thing they all had in common was their overwhelming sense of self-belief, self-preservation and determination.
Advolly Richmond talking about the history of houseplants on Gardeners’ World at Brodsworth Hall, UK, in October 2024. Photo by Gardeners’ World
Julie: Tell us a little about your process for digging out interesting garden history from the archives.
How do you decide which ones to investigate? Do you just sift through endless pages looking for the gems? Is art an important resource for garden history as well?
Advolly:Books, books and more books! I have a vast collection and since the pandemic many more resources including books and manuscripts have been digitised which has proved to be an absolute gamechanger for researchers in general. Everything I do has to appeal to me, so if I hear or see something of interest then I will start digging a little to see if it has enough ‘legs’ for further research for a lecture or an article. I teach the history of Italian Renaissance Gardens and general garden history at the University of Oxford and so it is usually a case of finding and researching the gardens and people that are exemplars of the various historical periods that I am teaching.
Art is such an important resource when researching plants and garden history. Over the centuries people have commissioned portraits and other paintings which invariable helps us to date certain styles and gives us historical evidence. Art history is very important when I am teaching because the ephemerality of gardens by their nature makes these images invaluable to a garden historian whether it is a full-on Jan Siebrecht bird’s eye view of a house and its garden or a small glimpse of a parterre over the shoulder of a nobleman’s portrait.
Flowers also consistently appear in art which is a story in itself and usually points to the symbolism of that particular plant. For instance, you often see young women in portraiture with a sprig of orange blossom or potted citrus plant, because they can carry fruit and flowers at the same time it symbolises fertility or impending childbirth.
Illustrations for Tulipa and Forsythia in 'A Short History of Flowers' by Advolly Richmond
Julie: A Short History of Flowers shares a wide variety of plants of all sorts. Is there a family of plants that you particularly love to grow in your garden?
Advolly:Roses, I absolutely adore roses but I have basically run out of room to plant them out in my garden, I have around 40 or so. In the last few years, I have mastered the art of growing them in pots, mainly a really good-sized container, top notch compost and a jolly good feed and mulch in the spring. This means I can add to my collection, but to be honest I am not sure whether this is a good thing or not—time will tell!
Interestingly as much as I love them, I admit that I nearly didn’t include the rose in my book because I thought they had been done to death. However, a newly named rose, Rosa ‘John Ystumllyn’ provided the perfect answer. John Ystumllyn (c.1738 – 1784), was the first documented black gardener in Wales and so I told his story.
“Portrait of black Welsh gardener John Ystumllyn (d. 1786), dated to 11 May 1754. Unidentified artisan artist" Photo left and info from Wikipedia; Rosa ‘John Ystumllyn’ Photo right by Advolly Richmond
I am also a bit of a galanthophile with quite a large snowdrop collection. In fact I have one named after me Galanthus elwesii ‘Advolly Richmond’, which in snowdrop circles makes me an ’immortal’ which makes me feel like someone out of the Marvel comics.
Galanthus 'Advolly Richmond', a selection of doubles, Galanthus 'Diggory.' Photos by Advolly Richmond
Julie: You include quite a few stories of plant discoveries in the Americas, such as California poppies, Mahonia, and the American Wisteria, W. frutescens.
Do you have a favorite North American plant?
Advolly:I am rather fond of Hydrangea arborescence. I grow several of the very blousy H. arborescence ‘Annabelle’ which incidentally would have been number 61 of my 60 flowers for the book if only I had been allowed. Again, its story centres on two women from a town called Anna in Illinois, I think you can guess the gist of the story!
Cowden Japanese Garden, north of Edinburgh, Scotland. Photo by Advolly Richmond
Julie: Which lesser-known historic gardens in the UK would you recommend to US gardeners to add to their travel maps for a visit?
Advolly:Cowden Japanese Garden, Clackmannanshire, Scotland – Absolutely stunning garden created in the early 20th century by Ella Christie following a trip to Japan.
Alton Towers Garden, Staffordshire – Set behind the UK’s largest Theme Park this extraordinary historic garden c.1814, is an eclectic and early example of the mixed style of features and planting. You need to pre-book.
Castle Bromwich Historic Gardens, Birmingham – A unique 17th century survival and restored garden. An oasis on the edge of Birmingham City.
Plas Brondanw, North Wales – A beautiful Arts and crafts garden surrounded by breath taking views of Welsh mountains.
Alton Towers Garden, Staffordshire. Photo by Advolly Richmond
Pond at Cowden Japanese Garden, north of Edinburgh, Scotland. Photo by Advolly Richmond
Julie: Where can we learn more about you and your work?
You will want to pick up a copy of Advolly’s book, A Short History of Flowers, as it will make the prefect springtime read during these days of daffodils and tea cakes on the porch between rain showers:
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What a fascinating piece. I have seen Advolly on GW and never knew her story. I can’t wait to find the book & podcast. Thanks, Julie x
I’m looking forward to reading her book, listening to the podcast, all of it! Thanks for interviewing Advolly!