TRIBUTES have been paid to a leading horticulturist who died in hospital following a two-vehicle collision.

Sue Ward, aged 61, died in Selly Oak Hospital, Birmingham, on Friday, August 4, after her vehicle was in collision with a second vehicle at Wick, near Pershore, earlier in the evening

Mrs Ward, who owned Wayside Nurseries at Elmley Castle, near Pershore, where she also lived, spent all of her working life in horticulture and helped found the Government's horticultural research centre in Northern Ireland.

She was also one of the three founding members of the British chapter of the International Plant Propagators' Society - which has more than 1,000 members in the UK - and held a number of posts in the organisation.

Mrs Ward's widower John, himself a horticultural consultant, who met his wife in 1971, said: "Horticultural propagation research was really her life and all she ever wanted to do.

"Sue was instrumental in the now commonly-accepted methods of container plant production, which, involving a tremendous amount of research, saw the changeover from the long-standing traditional system of production in the soil to production in container.

"She was also closely involved in pioneering work on rose root-stock that was so fundamental that 99 per cent of roses produced today are from the stock that she worked on with colleagues.

"But Sue always fought shy of any formal recognition of what she had done. Two ground-breaking propagation systems she was closely involved in developing could have been named after her but in her usual modest style, she firmly, but politely, declined."

Mr Ward said that when not working or looking after her family, his wife nearly always relaxed with a real busman's holiday - she liked to visit gardens, the older the better, as well as other nurseries.

Mrs Ward, who also leaves three children - Joy, aged 30, Anne, 28, and Richard, 24 - was a stalwart of St Mary's Parish Church, Elmley Castle, where her funeral is expected to take place, although no date has yet been finalised.