My home is in an area that was once owned by the Earl of Lovelace. Close by is a road named Lovelace Lane. The area has many of the distinctive decorative brick and flint cottages known, as one might expect, as Lovelace cottages. The family imprinted their existence firmly on the surrounding landscape even though they no longer live in this area, and when I discovered a clematis named 'Countess of Lovelace' I had to put one in my garden. It evoked images of a Victorian lady being honoured by her gardener as he produced a new hybrid in her name. In my imagination it might have even been created for Ada Lovelace, famous mathematician, first computer programmer and Byron's daughter.

The soil in my garden is heavy yellow Estuarine Clay over-topping blue Gault Clay. To say that it is heavy is an understatement. Claggy, soggy,

moss-ridden, with horrible drainage in winter and as hard as concrete in summer - soil guaranteed not to allow for happy healthy clematis. All books devoted to the care and nurture of them say they need good drainage, their base in the shade and their tops in the sun. The clematis 'Countess of Lovelace' would have to wait until I had developed a suitable area for plants needing drainage.

Years passed and a major remodelling of the kitchen released part of the garden for a change in design. I spent eighteen months building a raised wall and infilling the new beds with home-made compost. A wooden-trellised side-gate and purpose-built pergola completed the hard landscaping. The pergola was created to act as a support for a heavenly but nameless old rambling rose that clambers through the unkempt Cypress Leylandii hedge and dangles down onto its roof. Now I had a support and drainage that clematis would love. So I went about looking for plants that I liked enough to have climb up the four trellised posts.

To balance the pale pink, almost white, rambling rose I added repeat-flowering pink ones. The types chosen were Zephrine Douhin, Gertrude Jekyll and Dorothy Perkins (names again). I chose a selection of clematis in a variety of whites with coloured stamens. They were Clematis Floridii, Clematis Henyii Hybrid and the winter flowering Clematis Armandii. I was given a beautiful Wisteria to clamber up the pergola and added that. I still had to find Clematis 'Countess of Lovelace'.

My initial thought was to trace it through the Plant Finder book, that guide to finding obscure plants in the myriad nurseries and garden centres of England. I did in fact come across one producer whilst visiting my parents-in-law many years ago but felt a journey of two hours was just too much for the purchase of one plant. Nearer the time of pergola building I managed to pick up a 'Countess of Lovelace' clematis at the Hampton Court Flower Show in 1998. However, by the time the pergola was finished in 1999 it had succumbed to clematis wilt. I was just getting ready to purchase a newer edition of Plant Finder when I managed to find an example at Wisley.

It was carefully planted at the back of the pergola so that its roots were in the shade, yet the green tendrils could curve around towards the sunshine. I also put a lot of compost over the plant, a good four to five inches above the top of where the plant pot had been.This is recommended as it helps to avoid wilt. Then I kept my fingers crossed. So far, two months after planting, it has been wilt-free.

Having achieved the garden side of my search for 'Ada's clematis' I decided to try and find out if it had been named after her. I returned to Wisley and went into the library hoping to find out relevant information. I had never gone into the buildings before keeping solely to exploring the gardens. It was very small, more a reading room than a library. The lady manning the desk helped me locate an index to 'The Garden' to see if there were any references to my chosen clematis. We struck gold. It meant that the Librarian had to be telephoned upstairs to locate ancient bound copies of the magazine going back to the 1870's, 1910's and 1920's.

A priceless article written by the breeder of 'Countess of Lovelace' was found. It turned out that A. G. Jackmann had bred it, my clematis was a probably a Jackmannii. In his words "...another batch of seedlings was raised at the Woking Nurseries, and first flowered in 1871, from intercrossing C. Patens, C. Fortunei, C. Standishii and C. Sophia plena, with C Jackmannii, C. Rubella, C. Rubro-violacea, and C. Magnifica, and also reversing the crossings, some of the offspring partaking of the parents of the patens type, whilst others took the character of the parents of the Jackmannii and Florida types... Of those of the Florida type are C. Countess of Lovelace, bluish lilac with double Anemone-formed flowers; and C. Unique, pale yellowish green." In this detailed article on the development and cross-breeding of Clematis one understands the depth of A G Jackmann's love for the genus. However, no proof as to which Countess of Lovelace it was named after and in the long list of parents plants begetting children poor old 'Countess of Lovelace' receives no mention at all!

So what is my conclusion about who it was named after? Looking at the role-call of society names in the list it seems that the Victorians were as keen to name plants after people in the public eye as plant producers do today. Due to the time in which my clematis of choice was introduced I have to come to the conclusion it was not Ada, but her successor, who was so honoured. Still, I like the pretty lilac-blue colour with slightly twisted petals and look forward to seeing the double form in the earlier flowering. I hope the Countess will thrive on the pergola and avoid the dreaded wilt.

© Judy Farncombe 1999

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