The choice plants at John Morley’s garden at North Green Snowdrops in Suffolk result from his close collaboration with horticultural confidants such as Sir Cedric Morris and Primrose Warburg, and it’s now a living tribute to those passed
WORDS VAL BOURNE PHOTOGRAPHS RICHARD BLOOM
John and Diana Morley have lived in deepest rural Suffolk for over 50 years, in an isolated cottage painted in a warm shade that’s halfway between Suffolk-pink and Italian terracotta. Not surprising, really, because they’re both trained artists who studied at the Royal Academy. Their one-acre garden, part woodland idyll, part fritillary meadow and part stylish parterre, lies on soil John describes as ‘rotten egg’ – a local term, apparently. His beautifully labelled plant collection, gathered from famous horticultural giants such as Sir Cedric Morris and Helen Ballard, hasn’t noticed his reputedly poor soil though: all these plant treasures are well and truly thriving.
John Morley, one of the original snowdrop glitterati, was inducted into the dark art of snowdrop worship by three elderly ladies who attended his art class in Epsom in Surrey back in the 1970s. “They were keen gardeners and grew snowdrops they’d acquired from Woolworths in the 1940s. Sir Cedric Morris of Benton End became a friend and he introduced me to Suffolk plantswoman Jenny Robinson, who died in 2011 aged 94. Then I met Primrose Warburg, the doyenne of snowdrops in Oxford, and we were friends until her death in 1996,” John explains. All were very generous.
Richard Nutt, another prominent galanthophile, and Primrose Warburg used to hold snowdrop lunches, and John soon found himself on their guest lists. “Primrose said to me, ‘Well, you haven’t got many snowdrops have you?’” After that, parcels started to arrive in the post and his neighbour, the late Lady Priscilla Bacon of Raveningham Hall, also gave him lots of plants – including snowdrops. At that time snowdrops were not popular garden plants and few people grew them, so older galanthophiles were keen to encourage the next generation.
Snowdrops enjoy the relatively dry Suffolk climate and the Morleys’ benign position a few miles from the sea. “By the mid-1980s I had far too many snowdrops and Lady Priscilla Bacon advised me to ‘sell ’em!’ I put together a printed list of over 20 in 1984 and she included it in her nursery catalogue.” For
