The Lady of Lucy’s Wood – Evelyn Mary Booth
This botanical history post was featured on The Daily Gardener podcast:
October 30, 1897
On this day, Evelyn Mary Booth was born at Annamoe [AN-ah-moh], County Wicklow, Ireland.
Her story is a beautiful reminder that it's never too late to find your true calling in the garden.
Though Booth began her life as a spirited horsewoman and spent her younger years serving as a Red Cross ambulance driver in France during World War I, it wasn't until her forties that she discovered her botanical destiny.
Called home to care for her ailing mother during World War II, she met Edith Rawlins [RAW-linz], a passionate member of the Wild Flower Society. This chance encounter would transform Booth from an enthusiastic gardener into one of Ireland's most respected botanists.
At her home, Lucy's Wood, near Bunclody [BUN-clod-ee], she created what visitors described as an "enchanting" one-acre garden.
This wasn't just any garden – it was a living laboratory of rare plants, unusual cultivars, and species collected from the wild.
Her dedication to native flora led to her most significant achievement: The Flora of County Carlow, published in 1979, making her the first woman to author an Irish county flora.
What makes Booth's story particularly delightful are the personal touches she brought to botany.
She would "get up early to catch a salmon" for visiting botanists, and even in her eighties, she maintained her adventurous spirit, once cheerfully describing how she'd "ripped an arm on barbed wire" while collecting seeds for the National Botanic Gardens.
Booth's legacy lives on in the garden at Lucy's Wood, where a special wood anemone she discovered was named "Lucy's Wood" in her honor.
For today's gardeners, Booth's story reminds us that the best gardens combine scientific knowledge with personal passion.
Whether you're tending a windowsill of herbs or an acre of rare specimens, her example shows us that every garden tells a story, and it's never too late to begin writing your own botanical chapter.