Plant Heritage is proud to announce that Linda Eggins, renowned Aucuba japonica expert and National Plant Collection Holder, is the winner of the prestigious Brickell Award 2025.
The award - named after Plant Heritage’s founding member and Vice President Chris Brickell - celebrates excellence in cultivated plant conservation. The judges commended Linda for her dedicated research and conservation efforts over several decades.
In particular, they noted her important work to untangle the plant group’s complicated names and classifications, as well as her collaboration with others, including sharing her knowledge and plant material across the UK and internationally. Through her passion for these plants and her storytelling, she has helped to persuade others to appreciate their diversity, as well as their interesting history.
Linda and her late husband started the Aucuba collection almost 50 years ago in 1976, initially in their Worcestershire garden before being carefully transferred to Winterbourne House and Garden in Birmingham following a house move in 2016. Here, visitors can admire cultivars planted out in the garden, and the collection itself is proudly displayed on the University of Birmingham campus for the public to see.
Matthew Pottage, Head of Horticulture & Landscape Strategy at The Royal Parks, presents Linda Eggins with the Brickell Award 2025
© Plant Heritage
The Brickell Award 2025: from L to R - Gwen Hines, Chief Executive, Cecilia Bufton, Chair, Linda Eggins, Matthew Pottage, Head of Horticulture & Landscape Strategy at The Royal Parks and Daniel Cartwright, Head Garderner at Winterbourne House and Gardens
© Plant Heritage
Aucuba Japonica ‘Crotonifolia’
© Plant Heritage
Linda has published several articles, reports and even a book (‘A Virgin for Eighty Years – Aucuba, An Overlooked Treasure’) in 2021, which tells the fascinating story of why the first plants brought back from Japan failed to produce their trademark berries. She did a month-long tour of Japan to see native Aucuba japonica growing in the wild, how they are propagated, grown and developed in nurseries, and used in public spaces and gardens. She is now considered an international authority on all things Aucuba. Plant Heritage’s judges commended her ongoing passion and relentless pursuit for more knowledge, which has hugely contributed to the wider understanding of this genus.
Every year, Linda collects propagated material as required, keeps an inventory of back-up plants and has even donated specimens to prestigious botanical gardens worldwide, including Birmingham Botanical Gardens and Glasshouses, The Harold Hillier Arboretum, Bodenham Arboretum and The Raulston Arboretum in the USA.
Gwen Hines, CEO at Plant Heritage, said: “Linda has dedicated many years of her life to understanding, growing and caring for Aucuba japonica and telling their story, which is inspiring. Her passion shines through and her important contributions to plant conservation make her a worthy winner for our Brickell Award 2025.”
Linda Eggins said: “It’s an honour to be awarded the Brickell Award by Plant Heritage. I certainly didn’t think when my late husband and I started the collection in 1976 in our back garden, that I’d be awarded at RHS Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival for my contribution to the genus. I can hardly believe it.”