Ron Watts
30 October 2009
Herbert Ronald Watts, (Ron or Ronnie Watts) well-known and respected horticulturist, who was born in 1920, died on 9 August aged 89.
Ron began his career in horticulture when, at the age of 14, he went to work with his father who was also a gardener. In 1937 Ron was part of a 16-strong team of single gardeners living in the bothy at Cornbury Park in Oxfordshire. Part of his charge was to look after the large fruit houses containing peaches, nectarines and figs, and when these were in flower he had to pollinate them every day at midday with a rabbit's tail tied to a cane. Bananas for the shooting parties were also grown in a corridor, where the temperature had to be maintained at 80F from October to April, burning a ton of anthracite a day.
Throughout the Second World War Ron served in the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry. He was seriously injured just before the D-Day landings and there were fears that he would lose his left arm. Fortunately he was sent to Guy’s Hospital, London, where a surgeon successfully saved it. In 1943 he married Helen and in that year Ron took the position of foreman on a nursery growing chrysanthemums, sweet peas and other flowers for Covent Garden.
In 1952 he became head gardener at the 2.4ha (six acre) garden, Templecombe in East Grinstead and there looked after 82 cultivars of delphinium, more than 1,000 of roses and chrysanthemum and 143 different asters. Ron continued to grow and breed new cultivars including Delphinium ‘Atlantis’ and Delphinium ‘Völkerfreiden’ both having Awards of Garden Merit.
Ron was a great supporter of the RHS having served on its Fruit & Vegetable Committee from 1985; Vegetable Trials Committee for more than 10 years until 2009 and Delphinium Committee from 1999. He was also a President of the Delphium Society and Vice-president of the Surrey Horticultural Foundation. In 1984 he was presented with the RHS Associate of Honour and in 2008 awarded the MBE for voluntary services to horticulture.
Ron is survived by a son and daughter, five grandchildren and two great-granddaughters.