Lady Avon was not very fond of Chequers, though she did take a keen interest in the garden and grounds, introducing old fashioned roses and increasing the range of fruit trees. However, her successor, Lady Dorothy Macmillan, so keen a horticulturalist that she sometimes gardened at night, removed yellow and white flowers planted by Lady Avon and replaced them with roses of "normal colour". One episode at Chequers attracted considerable publicity. In January 1956 Lady Avon politely requested the occupant of a farm worker's cottage on the estate to hang her washing where it could not be seen by visitors. Although it seems that the washing may have been hung across a lime walk, beyond the boundary of the cottage garden itself, the story was taken up by the "Daily Mirror" as an alleged example of Lady Avon's high-handedness. Coming shortly after attacks in the press on Eden's leadership, the timing was unfortunate.