Jonathan Zerr recently completed a year’s traineeship under Head Gardener James Horner at Benton End, the former home and garden of Cedric Morris currently being restored and revived by the Garden Museum. His traineeship was funded by the WFGA (Working for Gardeners Association) through the National Gardens Scheme. It’s been a bountiful year for Jonathan, as he also recently won Young Horticulturalist of the Year! Here he looks back over his year at Benton End, sharing what he’s learned tending to Cedric Morris’ garden:
In 2021 I moved to the Suffolk countryside to embark on my journey to enhance my horticultural skills in the UK. Whilst volunteering at Helmingham Hall, I met Lucy Skellorn, who was then a research assistant at Benton End. Lucy’s passionate exploration of the history of the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing and its pupils laid much of the groundwork for the ongoing efforts to revive the spirit of this special place. It was through her, I first learned about Cedric Morris and Arthur Lett-Haines. Her enthusiasm for the project was infectious, and I soon began reading up on the history of the house and garden.
Two years later, while working as a horticultural student at RHS Garden Wisley, I had to choose a topic for my final year research project. By then, books such as Gwynneth Reynolds’ Benton End Remembered, filled with personal accounts from friends and students of Cedric and Lett, fuelled my curiosity. I delved deeper into the topic, exploring potential approaches to the revival of the Garden at Benton End in an effort to conserve the unique spirit and near magnetic attraction of this place to people from all walks of life.
After completing my dissertation, which gave me a chance to meet many of the outstanding individuals spearheading the early stages of the project, I felt a strong urge to become part of these efforts and witness the garden’s transformation firsthand. When I learned of an opportunity to train under the newly appointed Head Gardener James Horner, I jumped at the chance. I was thrilled to be selected as the first trainee of a new Benton End, hopefully paving the way for many budding gardeners and artists to follow…
When I began working alongside James in August 2023, it was clear we had our work cut out for us. James, who had started his role as Head Gardener in the spring, had spent the summer months familiarising himself with the site’s unique features and plant communities. Over four decades of dormancy, largely untouched by its owners following Morris’s death in 1982, the Garden’s once meticulously curated island beds had been overtaken by grasses and wildflowers. The remarkable survivals which Sarah Cook called ‘Cedric’s ghost’, the most competitive of the many species of ephemeral geophytes that once grew here, clung to life in this new habitat as a new balance of species took shape. Vigorous bulbs such as imperial fritillaries, scilla, snowdrops, and winter aconites, thrived in this environment, whilst others survived protected from being swamped by grass under the sheltering canopies of the remaining trees and shrubs.
By the start of my placement in late summer, most of the spring fanfare of Cedric’s ghosts had long senesced, leaving behind long grass swaying in the wind and the occasional seedhead of an unidentified bulb. However, it was not long until the drama began to unfold anew, as a perfectly timed cut of the walled garden meadow revealed a plethora of emerging colchicums and crocuses.
Central to our approach in progressively clearing ever larger areas of former borders, was the accurate documentation of the remaining planting that could be traced back to Cedric. Equipped with freshly coppiced hazel stakes, I set about marking and labelling the many autumn blooms.
In winter, as the bulbs went dormant once again, we focused our attention on propagating various herbaceous perennials from seed. In line with the ethos of the new Benton End, we aim to evoke in future visitors the same sense of wonder and awe inspired by the diverse range of plants once cultivated here by Cedric. Like him, we appreciate seeds not only for their affordability but also for their potential to grow into plants which are well-adapted to their environment, especially those lineages collected from the garden itself. One good example is Cedric’s strain of annual field poppies (Papaver rhoeas), traded under the name ‘Mother of Pearl’. He selected these for their distinctive grey flower colour by mercilessly weeding out any plants reverting to their wild, red colour. A practice we have gone on to replicate to purify our re-established seed bank as the season progressed.
Throughout winter, keen to reap the benefits of natural cold stratification, we sowed a wide variety of seeds, ranging from wild-collected rarities and those from surviving plants at Benton End to stock generously donated by friends of the project. Additional sowings of annuals and biennials have since allowed us to create temporary displays in areas of the garden affected by recurring perennial weeds.
When we weren’t expanding our ever-growing plant collection, we focussed our efforts on battling the overgrown vegetation. Throughout the steady process of carefully peeling back the layer of turf and vigorous colonising perennial herbs such as Arum, nettles, and ground elder, our goal was to avoid disturbing desirable bulbs such as naturalised Sicilian honey garlic and white bryony (Bryonia dioica). This vigorous native climber, commonly regarded as a weed in hedgerows, was left to grow through the crooked branches of our overgrown shrubs. Its value, besides that of its ornamental flowers, lies its role as the sole food plant for the diminutive bryony mining bee (Andrena florea), previously documented on site.
Although we made steady progress clearing areas of the walled garden, the unusually wet winter weather soon proved to be a nuisance for more than one reason. Despite our diligent use of wooden boards laid across the ground for even weight distribution, working the wet soil soon became challenging without causing unnecessary compaction. The seemingly never-ending rains were so extreme that the Monterey Pine (Pinus radiata) in the walled garden, a tree of considerable size, began to take on a worrying lean. Concerns about the hazard posed by the tree’s decline were raised soon and so it was scheduled for removal. However, as luck would have it, one stormy night the tree finally lost its hold on the ground and came crashing down just days before it was scheduled to be felled.
Unfortunately, strong winds altered the direction of its fall, resulting in partial damage to the old garden wall and the plants beyond. Making the most of this unfortunate situation, we used the opportunity to assess the general structural damage to the wall, which was luckily minimal. We worked alongside the team of professional arboriculturists that had originally been hired to safely fell our pine, processing it into woodchip mulch, plinths for future art exhibitions on site, and large planks to be used for constructing garden furniture once dry-cured.
Having dealt with the fallen pine, we continued clearing the small woodland in the upper garden. Without proper management over the past decades, many seedlings of hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna), blackthorn (Prunus spinosa), and hazel (Corylus avellana) had grown leggy as they raced towards the light. Now, maturing and gaining mass, the trees were unable to support themselves and had toppled like dominoes. Removing such large amounts of deadwood would have been a daunting task were it not for the invaluable help of the local Hadleigh Environmental Action Team (HEAT). This group of ecologically minded volunteers has been assisting us fortnightly to keep the vegetation in check.
Throughout our extensive clearing of vegetation across the garden, we have been mindful of the impact our efforts would have on the diverse wildlife that had settled here over the years. Standing deadwood, in particular, has become an increasingly rare habitat that supports a wide variety of invertebrates. Along with introducing water to the garden, maintaining deadwood is one of the best ways to boost the biodiversity of green spaces, and we had plenty of it.
To provide shelter and a food source for our wild residents, James decided to construct habitat piles throughout the upper garden. We accumulated enough material to construct three sizeable piles. Their sculptural silhouettes now serve as a reminder of the garden’s wild past as they themselves slowly begin to be reclaimed by nature.
Spring arrived faster than expected and, starting with snowdrops and winter aconites which painted the garden in a sea of white and yellow, the Ghosts were back in full force. From February to June, we were kept on our toes by waves of vibrant flowers rippling through the garden.
A final cut of the meadow in late winter kept the grasses in check, helping us find and label the various emerging bulbs including Muscari, Fritillaries, and Anemones. Last year’s planting of foxgloves also rewarded us with dozens of colourful spires throughout the shaded parts of the walled garden, whilst the old hazel, Judas tree (Cercis siliquastrum), and Medlar erupted into flower.
With the rain finally easing up, we began planting up the beds we cleared in autumn throughout the walled garden. We constructed tepees out of coppiced hazel to house autumn-sown sweet peas grown from a strain that can be traced back to Cedric. This impactful variety first given to Cedric by his friend John Nash, has recently been awarded the RHS Award of Garden Merit.
Additional plantings of Verbascum, Nicotiana, Ammi, Scabious and many more helped us keep the ground shaded and weed free in preparation for the wide variety of seedlings growing on in the cold frames.
As our plants flourished in the continued spring rainfall, the highly anticipated iris season arrived in what felt like the blink of an eye. It was such a joy to get properly acquainted with the Benton cultivars, of which I had only seen a few in person. By now, thanks to the efforts of plantswoman and national collection holder of Cedric Morris irises, Sarah Cook, Benton End has amassed a sizeable collection of cultivars featuring many rarities not usually seen in gardens. Some of Cedric’s introductions are slow-growing and therefore unsuitable for the nursery trade, so we made it our goal to showcase as many underappreciated irises as possible. And what better way to do so than during our annual opening as part of the Hadleigh Open Gardens Day? With one last mow, a bit of staking and some deadheading, we ensured the garden was looking its best. With the help of many dedicated volunteers and trustees, we welcomed an unprecedented number of over 800 visitors to the garden, marking a great success for everyone involved. It was a pleasure to share our work with so many enthusiastic visitors. Seeing the house and garden full of life and excitement felt like a window to the past.
Now, with just a few weeks left in my student placement at Benton End, the garden is once again returning to a state of quiet serenity. We are itching to continue to build upon our progress over the past year. I am confident that we have laid a strong foundation for the continued diversification of the garden’s plant collection. Our hopes are high that we will be able to transform this space into something that not only represents the varied facets of its past but also supports a diverse and inclusive Benton End in the future, to become a home for artistic and horticultural learning and experimentation once more. Though my work as a student is coming to an end, I am excited to remain involved as a member of the team. Working at Benton End has been a rewarding challenge and it has been a pleasure to be apart of this inspiring journey so far. I look forward to see what the future holds.