By James Horner, Head Gardener
Prior to taking on the mantle of renewing the walled garden at Benton End, Cedric Morris’ hallowed ground where rare plants spring aplenty, I followed Garden Museum Head Gardener Matt Collins on his Suffolk odyssey during the pandemic. Through the portal of Instagram, I was amazed at some of the treasures he detected, which battled the grass and persisted from Cedric’s time. On arriving myself in March 2023, I knew to expect the fritillaries, rare treasures such as Fritillaria acmopetala, but I wasn’t sure exactly where! I’d seen snapshots of the scarce species daffodils like Narcissus tazetta subsp. italicus and gorgeous photos of the swathes of Scilla bithynica, but now it was all going to reappear before my very eyes. Matt told me, tantalisingly, that he felt “more secrets lay waiting under the coppiced hazel”.
Full of excitement and hope, I continue to scour the ground. And whilst those frits are on the increase, there have been thrilling new emergents too! All of which are such rare plants that only a truly invested plants person would seek out and cultivate, so it is without doubt that these are resurgent plants from the four decades when Cedric Morris grew his cornucopia of exotic flora within the Benton End walled garden.
Arum creticum announced its presence last spring, only when it flowered. It’s a relative of the UK native arum lily known as Lords and ladies or Cuckoo pint, of which we have an unfortunate wealth! It has similarly plain green foliage and a similar habit, so was lost amongst the many thousands of native arum lily until it flowered. The flower of Arum creticum is a clear bright yellow, strikingly different to the translucent pale green of the native arum lily, it also flowers a couple of months earlier. As it’s name suggests, this arum lily is native to Crete but also south west Turkey, its flowering time is in sync with the Mediterranean’s earlier spring. It’s not remarkably difficult to grow but it is frequently recommended to be grown in pot culture to enable a grittier soil mix to increase drainage around the tuber. The soil within Benton End’s walled garden varies slightly in it’s clay content but is consistently sandy and loamy and loose. Cedric Morris must have known the brilliance of this soil for cultivating plants of Mediterranean origin. Their survival is testament to this.
Right at the end of last summer, before the colchicums nosed up, we scarified the meadow areas and removed huge heaps of thatch. This has increased the light reaching down to the soil surface and also knocked back the competitive native grasses. One plant which was present in my first year, gardening Benton End, but wasn’t happy enough to flower was a mysterious member of the buttercup family, which now, no longer continues to eluded us. Of course, the UK has many native buttercups and these are at home in the walled garden whether weeds or not. So firstly we considered that this could be a rare native buttercup, perhaps the Wooly buttercup or the Hairy buttercup, not so. This mystery plant pops up in several spots within the ‘meadows’ of the walled garden, it seems to form seeded drifts or colonies by underground vegetative spreading. Mid way through April it began to form flower stems and as these grew taller and the buds opened, myself and trainee gardener Jonathan Zerr began to search through wildflower guides on our lunch breaks. Nothing quite had the appearance of what we had.
Then I remembered to consult the 20 page catalogue we have which was formed by Flatford Mill botanist Jim Bingley in the early 80s, going straight to R’s, there were four Ranunculus species, and in turn I looked each up. I came to the last one and hit the jackpot, Ranunculus illyricus, not only that, but quickly learnt that Beth Chatto’s nursery still to this day cultivate and occasionally sell this endangered buttercup. No doubt Cedric and Beth would have shared this plant decades ago. The Illyrican buttercup is a grassland buttercup from eastern and central Europe, where grasslands are estimated to have decreased by 50% in the past 200 years. It’s a delightful buttercup with a flower stem that bends over towards the top and has a slightly larger flower than the typical size. To undertaken such a journey to fathom what this ghost of Cedric’s garden actually is, botanically, makes our relationship to these plants only more meaningful.
Similarly shy to flower but showing plenty of foliage presence are the tuberous geraniums. It is hugely encouraging that the methods and approach we are exercising across the garden is bringing these plants back to a condition where they are fit enough to flower. Another plant which at first sight I didn’t instantly know was Geranium macrostylum. Falling into the tuberous geranium bunch which come into leaf in mid winter and flower in spring before disappearing back underground by early summer, these make for great additions to meadows, as they fit into a standard management regime.
Lastly, a rose. Perhaps Cedric Morris is not well known for cultivating roses, the irises rightly take such acclaim. But roses are a group of plants which I’ll happily reintroduce to the garden, very few have survived. Those that have, have certainly made up for it. We have the original rambling rose which Peter Beales named ‘Sir Cedric Morris’, it is a hybrid between Rosa mulliganii and Rosa glauca and is now the size of a house, totally engulfing tens of spindle bushes and creating a huge amounts of scrub where blackcaps and dunnocks are nesting this spring.
This is fortunately in the upper garden where space is a bit more on offer. In the walled garden a very delicate shrub rose, Rosa webbiana has survived. It has dainty foliage and extremely pretty pale pink single flowers. It’s apparent that Cedric Morris grew species roses and old rose varieties. Vita Sackville-West was an occasional guest at Benton End and may have shared roses with Cedric. Currently, Rosa webbiana is a splendidly elegant plant to have arching over the meadowy walled garden come June.