Bonnie Masterson, the Oklahoma businesswoman behind the £20m Diana Memorial Rose Garden appeal, describes herself as a "visionary" on her website, englandsrose, which promotes the project.
She says that like millions of others she was touched by Princess Diana's death and wondered "Why someone couldn't offer a significant memorial to someone who had obviously touched so many lives.
"Diana needed a proper commemoration of her life. I had England's Rose. The Royal National Rose Society had a plan for the Royal National Rose Garden. Together we have set to build a garden for the people's princess."
But an interview with the New York Times last year reveals a slightly different explanation. For it shows that Ms Masterson, who runs a small company, Collectible Commemorative Gardens, in Tulsa, was also in need of new business. The New York Times reported: "The idea came to her when she was in need of a new product to market. She had not had a big hit since she designed the Winniest Bear, a teddy bear to celebrate the famous football coach Bear Bryant and his University of Alabama team."
She said: "I wanted to combine something beautiful with business. I started thinking of that poor woman and her tragic life and those poor boys. I'd heard the name England's Rose, so I called Cynthia, a gardener, and said: 'Have you ever seen an England's Rose in the catalogues?' She said: 'No,I don't think so.' So I called the trademark lawyers. Because if there wasn't an England's Rose, there needed to be."
She then trademarked the name, got on the internet and found the site of the Royal National Rose Society.
Two months and dozens of emails later, she persuaded Ken Grapes, director general of the society, to talk about promoting her trademark rose with a plan for a new garden in memory of Princess Diana.
Until then, Ms Masterson had never visited Britain, but she says she was enraptured by meeting Colonel Grapes, whom she describes as a cross between David Niven and Colonel Mustard in Cluedo.
She is now proud to be a vice-patron of the society and boasts of being invited with her husband, John, to meet the Queen at a royal garden party at Buckingham Palace.
She has big business plans for her company, which already has a toll-free ordering service for knick-knacks such as petal pillows and other trinkets in honour of Princess Diana.
She is planning a collection of roses themed after various stages of Diana's life. Names include Shy Di, Royal Bride, and Queen of Hearts. She envisages an international industry, plus a bridal line and collectibles.
"I have combined beauty and business to own the name of what will become the most famous rose in the world."
Royalty and hard times
• The Royal National Rose Society is the world's oldest national plant society, founded in 1876 by the dean of Rochester, Canon Hole. He believed that the scent of 10,000 roses would defy "the all-pervading stench of the river Thames".
• It has had royal patrons since Queen Alexandra in 1888; the Queen Mother is present patron.
• It moved to its present site outside St Albans in Hertfordshire in 1948, but has fallen on hard times. The society has 11,000 members but deficits of £225,000.
• The Garden of the Rose, its headquarters in Chiswell Green, St Albans, has 30,000 plants and 1,800 species, and opens June to September.
• The society hopes a £20m appeal and redevelopment of its site to include three royal gardens will revive it - particularly with access close to the M25.
