Amanda Ross makes botanical art with a twist. Her intensely detailed and gently vibrant pieces are printed from the actual plants. A hopeless gardener, she has amassed a vast collection of preserved plants which act as both raw materials, and mementos and relics of places. With these, she conveys the essence or spirit of places and gardens, using the very things that made them. Her pieces capture a moment, or season of a constantly changing natural environment; places and gardens that grow, change, die and reappear.

Once pressed and preserved, each plant is handprinted onto fabric, acknowledging Amanda’s textile background. These prints are then digitized and added to the digital herbarium, the plant library that provides the raw materials for each artwork. Every print produces different results. This element of surprise keeps Amanda engaged and curious. Initially plants were chosen purely for their aesthetic shapes and commercial appeal; now they are selected for their location, or provenance, as well as their visual beauty. Her work centres on the examination of plant structures and their combination to evoke a memory of place. Her work has an ethereal quality, achieved through her sense of colour and composition and the plant itself doing the drawing.

Since 2014 Amanda has worked with gardeners and from prestigious gardens, producing pieces specific to them, using their own botany. Her knowledge of plants and places continues to expand with the generous help of gardeners and professionals. Her work graces the walls of prominent gardeners and a keeper of the herbarium at Kew. She has won awards at RHS shows, but still struggles with the houseplants.