As we’ve been digging and clearing vegetation across the walled garden, we’ve found numerous empty paint tubes, old bottles and fragments of ceramics, all from the days when Cedric and his partner Arthur Lett-Haines based the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing here, and Benton End was known locally as ‘the artist’s house’. In keeping with this sense of place, I’ve repurposed several used metal paint kettles as plant pots for this shade-loving arrangement.
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How to achieve the look
Container and composition
These painters kettles, found on eBay, are all different sizes, which offers a greater opportunity to match a pot to a particular plant. Once a few drainage holes are drilled through their bases, they make an appropriate alternative to a host of clay plant pots. The running streams of paint down their sides ties in with the drip-tip foliage of the voodoo lily, Sauromatum venosum, with its sinister-looking mottled leaf stalks.
Staging this arrangement on a flight of steps means you don’t need to rely on increasing the pot sizes to give that sense of theatre. Multiple begonia plants were chosen to showcase the extraordinary variety within the genus. All enjoy a degree of shade, which protects their foliage from scorching. The metallic marbling of the crumpled foliage of Begonia ‘Solid Silver’ looks marvellous beside the tiny steel-blue flowers of Allium sikkimense. Creating a dynamism from the centre is the eye-catching Persicaria
‘Purple Fantasy’.
Cultivation and care
This arrangement won’t need excessive watering, as it needs a shaded site. Just once a week in all but the hottest weather should be adequate. Using a potting soil with loam included will help to retain moisture. These woodland plants will enjoy composted bark or a bit of leaf mould incorporated into the mix too. The begonias are not winter hardy and will need to be tucked up in a frost-free place when the weather turns.
Plants
Begonia soli-mutata Has distinct, coarsely reptilian-like, dark-green, scallop-shaped foliage. 40cm x 50cm. AGM. RHS H1B, USDA 10a-12.
Begonia bowerae var. nigramarga Foliage with curiously dimming venation and a bright centre. 40cm x 40cm.
Polypodium glycyrrhiza ‘Malahatense’ Hardy, robust and winter-green fern. 25cm x 30cm.
Sauromatum venosum A hardy plant in the arum family, known as the voodoo lily. 50cm x 30cm. RHS H1C, USDA 6a-10b.
Persicaria ‘Purple Fantasy’ Herbaceous perennial with a running habit. 60cm x 70cm. RHS H6, USDA 3a-9b.
Begonia ‘Solid Silver’ Rex type begonia with hairy leaf stems. Requires frost-free protection. 30cm x 40cm.
Allium sikkimense Dwarf allium suitable for a pot or a position with little competition. 30cm x 20cm. RHS H6, USDA 6a-10b.