George Russell, who lived at 20 Kensington St in South Bank, was a jobbing gardener with an allotment at Bustardthorpe, which is south of here along the Bishopthorpe Road. He was inspired to start breeding better lupins in 1911 by the sight of a vase of lupins arranged by a Mrs Micklethwaite, one of his employers, at a house on The Mount. He noticed that her lupins were very poor and was convinced he could do better, so he embarked on a 20-year project to develop a new much improved strain.
He preferred natural pollination by bumble bees for hybridisation to vegetative propagation or hand pollination. At the end of each season he collected seed from the very best plants and sowed it. Any inferior plants were rigorously removed. He carried on until by the 1930s, people travelled from across the country to see the lupins blooming in his Bishopthorpe Rd plot. By the 1940s every lupin sold was a Russell lupin and by the age of 79 he was exhibiting at Chelsea. His sturdy plants became a feature of the post-war garden, and each packet of seeds was sealed with his picture as a sign of authenticity.
