Louis Robert Russell VMH
9 February 2012
The death of Louis Russell on 8 December 2011 at the age of nearly 83, brought to an end five generations' involvement in gardening and nurseries over 200 years.
Louis’s great-great-grandfather was a gardener on the Isle of Wight, probably at Osborne House. His great grandfather worked for a nursery in Hampstead for 30 years before purchasing it in 1874.
On his death in 1904 the business was divided between his three sons. Louis’s grandfather, the first Lou Russell, took over the nursery in Richmond as L R Russell. He subsequently had the use of the great conservatory at Syon House to indulge his passion for stove house plants, which were so popular before the First World War for the heated conservatories of great houses.
After the war the demand for these stove house plants faded. Louis’s father, John, had to persuade his father to cease their production, focusing instead on the wide range of trees and shrubs which they were by then growing on the new nursery they acquired in Windlesham, Surrey in 1936.
Louis joined his father John in 1947. Their buoyant mail order trade declined with the spread of garden centres across the country in the 1960s and 1970s, so after his father’s death in 1976 Louis decreased their production, ceasing entirely in 1986. Louis focused on the garden centre at their nursery, which he had started in 1958, one of the first garden centres in the country.
Ill health obliged Louis to sell the garden centre in 1987; his two sons were pursuing other careers. Louis was at heart a designer, so he then ran his own garden design and consultancy business until 1999 when he finally retired.
RHS service
The RHS played a huge part in the Russell’s lives and all made a great contribution to it. John and Louis both served on RHS Committees for many years. Louis served on the Rhododendron and Camellia Committee, from 1968 to 1984 and again from 1990 to 1993 (Chairman, 1985-86); Floral B (now Woody Plant), from 1968 to 1993 (Vice-Chairman, 1984-85); and Shows Advisory Committee, from 1975 to 1983 (Vice-Chairman, 1984). He was also a member of RHS Council from 1975-1985.
Grandfather Louis received the VMH in 1930 and Louis’s father, John, in 1958. Louis levelled with his forbearers by receiving his VMH in 1984. Three generations of VMH – a great achievement.
In 1956 Louis married Sheila, who survives him, along with their two sons, Paul and Richard, and in 2008 he published an account of his family's achievements in the book The Russells in Horticulture 1800 – 2000.
Charles Notcutt