Anne, Countess of Rosse in Nymans Garden mid 1930s. ©The Messel Collection, Nymans Gardens, The National Trust.

With great style the women of the Messel family use floral patterns and references on their clothes. Maud Messel and her daughter Anne, Countess of Rosse, both had a committed interest in horticulture and a sentimental attachment to their gardens and plants. Maud and Anne are remembered for filling their homes with flowers and were involved in plant propagation with their husbands. The gardens at Birr Castle and Nymans remain as testament to the family's passion. Famous examples of plants propagated at the women's gardens include Tree Peony: Paeonia ludlowii-hybrid 'Anne Rosse' and Camellia Williamsii 'Maud Messel'.

Maud Messel

	Maud Messel's going-away hat designed by Woollands 1898. ©Nicholas Sinclair 2004.

Maud's biographer Shirley Nicholson writes that Maud's favourite flowers were 'soft-petalled, drooping, heavily-scented old English roses - whose beauty lasted for a few brief days only - exactly suited to her romantic style'.

Maud's going-away hat, designed by Woollands in 1898, decorated in swathes of pink chiffon, dripping with artificial lilac, is characteristic of her romantic and picturesque use of floral decoration. Many other garments of Maud's survive in the Messel Collection which incorporate floral motifs.

Anne, Countess of Rosse

	Anne, Countess of Rosse aged 80 at Nymans 1982. ©The Messel Collection at Nymans Gardens, The National Trust.

'I am my garden'
Anne, Countess of Rosse 1985

Throughout her adult life flowers formed a core component of Anne's fashion identity. Many of her dresses that survive in the Messel Dress Collection are made of floral fabrics. As Anne grew older, her choice of fabric became brighter and bolder.

Large, eye-catching corsages applied to her clothes were Anne's style signature. One of her earliest dresses preserved in the collection, designed by Norman Hartnell, is decorated with three-dimensional velvet roses. Anne's corsages made from real flowers have obviously not survived, but press reports describe these striking decorations. In 1933 Anne was noticed wearing 'a lime green crêpe gown and cape bordered with sable squirrel which tied under the shoulder with a cluster of gigantic orchids'. The daily Express in 1933 described a very unusual evening dress worn by Anne with 'shoulder straps made of huge white feather flowers which unclipped could be worn as a necklace'.

Anne passed her love of corsage onto her daughter Susan, making for her in 1953 a yellow silk dress adorned with a bright pink silk velvet camellia - a favourite family flower.