Root of the matter!

'Could you home a National Plant Collection to help ensure that different plant groups remain in cultivation for future generations to enjoy?'

- Barbara Segall

When Sarah Cook VMH retired from her role as Head Gardener at Sissinghurst Castle in 2004, she returned to Hadleigh in Suffolk, where she grew up. Happily, she landed on a retirement project to search out the bearded irises bred by a fellow former Hadleigh resident, the artist Sir Cedric Morris.

Sarah has located some 30 of the 95 'missing' named irises that Morris bred at his home in Benton End - many of them named for his friends and pets, such as 'Benton Baggage' (a cat) and 'Benton Rubeo' (a pet macaw) - and she now holds the Plant Heritage Historic Collection of Iris (Sir Cedric Morris introductions). And in May 2025, Sarah took the irises, alongside The Iris Florilegium of Sir Cedric Morris, created by award-winning botanical artists, to the RHS Chelsea Flower Show.

Meanwhile, a Suffolk wholesale grower, Howard Nurseries, has been growing them commercially and they are now available to buy from several retail outlets. Many are also back at Benton End where they were first conjured into life. And the space is now being renewed by the Garden Museum as a place of art and horticulture, learning and friendship, as it was in Morris's lifetime. A clear win for the plants and the people!