Press
After creating an enchanting festival show garden at RHS Hampton Court Palace, Alexandra Noble was commissioned to re-create the design for this garden in west London, complete with secret spaces, winding paths and magical, gossamer-fine planting. The small space is filled with clouds of Cenolophium denudatum, Anthriscus sylvestris ‘Ravenswing’ and Chaerophyllum hirsutum ‘Roseum’. A pale gravel path edged with porphyry setts meanders through the space, passing a table and chairs.
https://www.houseandgarden.co.uk/gallery/small-garden-ideas-design
Clare Foster for House & Garden (Online), March 15th 2024
Garden Visit: A Parking Space Transformed Into a Sublime Garden
https://www.gardenista.com/posts/garden-visit-parking-space-transformed-sublime-garden/
Clare Coulson for Gardenista, February 23rd 2023
When landscape designer Alexandra Noble and planting designer Nigel Dunnett were tasked with creating the scene for Zimmermann’s SS23 fashion show in Paris, the brief was to recreate the strange, slightly surreal primitive landscapes of a Henri Rousseau painting. They surrounded the Petit Palais’ Beaux Arts courtyard garden by layering varieties of lush palms and glossy shrubs; frangipani and schefflera, punctuated with the long shaggy foliage of Parkinsonia aculeata (the Jerusalem Thorn) and Acacia stenophylla (the shoestring acacia), whose hazy foliage dropped down either side of the runway. “For a while these kinds of exotic plants were quite unfashionable,” says Noble. “But it creates such an incredible effect when you have them en masse. It’s an out-there, maximal aesthetic.”
https://www.ft.com/content/00c6ba12-eff1-4fbe-8733-21945477d82f
Interviewed by Clare Coulson for FT How to Spend It, February 4th 2023
If you want to be surprised, ask Alexandra Noble what she is up to; last time I called her she was at Paris Fashion Week, installing a forested catwalk. Noble first studied as an architect and has a particular nerve for taking on difficult urban sites. Romantic, with a hard edge.
https://www.gardensillustrated.com/gardens/gardeners/gardeners-impact-2022/
Christopher Woodward for Gardens Illustrated (Online), December 20th 2022
ZHA, Fosters and AHMM among architects creating gingerbread world
Richard Waite for The Architects’ Journal (Online), December 9th 2022
A RHS award-winning show garden recreated behind a west London house
https://www.houseandgarden.co.uk/gallery/alexandra-noble-chiswick-garden
Jodie Jones for House & Garden (Online), August 16th 2022
33 pieces of advice from House & Garden's Rising Stars
https://www.houseandgarden.co.uk/article/33-pieces-of-advice-from-house-and-gardens-rising-stars
Eleanor Cording-Booth for House & Garden (Online), July 22nd 2022
Meet House & Garden's first ever Rising Stars – the design talents to watch for 2022
https://www.houseandgarden.co.uk/gallery/rising-stars
House & Garden, June 2022
Fashion, royalty and the new power brokers — how the Chelsea Flower Show became cool
Clare Coulson for the Evening Standard, May 25th 2022
The nine hip garden trends to know now
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-nine-hip-garden-trends-to-know-now-3rzx2d73x
Charlie Gowans-Eglinton for Sunday Times Style Magazine, May 22nd 2022
“Designing a planting scheme for a peaceful garden is a real treat. For my clients, I will tend to opt for plants with a subtle fragrance as well as incorporating plenty of white flowers. Rosa ‘Desdemona’ and Lavandula ‘Arctic Snow’ fit this brief perfectly.”
https://www.livingetc.com/ideas/forest-bathing
Interviewed by Hugh Metcalf for Livingetc, April 2022
“Over the past couple of years, the population has found solace in the face of uncertainty within gardens, parks and the wider landscape. Our green spaces have never felt more vital for wellbeing.
On a domestic scale, I’ve noticed an increase in clients desiring an informal, natural feel within their urban plots. This wilder aesthetic might be celebrated, for example, via environmentally beneficial practices, such as leaving seedheads over winter, mowing less frequently, allowing plants to grow in gaps between paving, and welcoming mosses and lichens.
As a practical example of promoting sustainability, I’m strongly advocating the environmental benefits of a natural lawn for those clients who request artificial grass, and declining commissions should the client be adamant that artificial grass is the only way forward. I’m also reinforcing the message to clients and friends outside the industry about the importance of peat-free and organic growing methods.”
Garden Trends 2022 contribution for Gardens Illustrated, January 2022
Alexandra’s health and wellbeing garden design won the 2018 RHS People’s Choice Award at Hampton Court Palace Flower Show. “Recently, the majority of client briefs have been looking for the creation of an atmosphere or to achieve a certain mood rather than requesting a series of fixtures. Gardens should offer us space to rest and recuperate; a counterpoint to technology-focussed modern life.”
So what tips does Alexandra have for anyone looking to create a restful garden retreat?
“Incorporate fragrant plants such as star jasmine, sweet peas or mock orange, depending on your scent preference. I personally adore lemon-scented roses such as Rosa ‘Charles Darwin’ or Rosa ‘Vanessa Bell’.
"Surround the space with plants. Gardens where one feels cocooned by carefully considered foliage are a delight to experience. Use harmonious colours. I find whites and pastels particularly calming when it comes to flowers.”
Alexandra hopes the preference for artificial grass diminishes “because of how harmful to the environment it is. Rather than astro-options, consider natural lawns or wildflower meadows.”
https://www.countryliving.com/uk/homes-interiors/gardens/a38436475/gardening-trends-2022/
Interviewed by Kyra Hanson for Country Living, December 18th 2021
Designer Alexandra Noble has created an installation of pillarbox red planters for North Audley Street in Mayfair, central London. Part of a masterplan, by design studio Publica, to transform Mayfair and Belgravia for the Grosvenor Estate, the planters also define dining spaces on widened footpaths. The planters are filled with drought-tolerant plants, mainly ornamental grasses and evergreens, interspersed with longflowering perennials and annuals, most of which support pollinators. Trees such as Arbutus unedo, Cotinus coggygria 'Royal Purple' and Crataegus coccinea provide vertical accents
Annie Gatti for Gardens Illustrated, December 2021
Earlier this year, the United Kingdom’s Chelsea Flower Show, one of the world’s most prestigious horticultural events, introduced two new categories intended to recognize the importance of small-space gardening. The results in the balcony and container gardens exhibits were predictably spectacular, but they begged a question: How do you protect plants in pots and boxes in locations exposed to the worst that winter may do?
Alexandra Noble, an award-winning garden designer based in London, created a balcony garden for this year’s show that combined small trees, ornamental grasses and shrubs. She recommends putting a layer of organic mulch on the soil in every pot and planter. Prune any dead or damaged branches, but leave seed heads just as they are.
“I’m a big advocate of allowing structural seed heads of plants to remain over winter, providing forage for birds and other wildlife,” Noble said. “These seed heads also look beautiful when touched with frost on a winter morning.”
Interviewed by Bill Kent for The Washington Post, December 1st 2021
And for a new generation of designers, the focus on form, texture and movement ripples through most of their designs. Alexandra Noble showed at this year’s Chelsea Flower Show how these kind of textural schemes can even work on a 2m by 5m balcony, and weaves grasses into almost all of her planting schemes. Her favourites include Miscanthus ‘Silberfeder’, “an elegant architectural form with silver-toned tassels”; the semi-evergreen Anemanthele lessoniana that turns a fiery russet in winter; and Panicum virgatum ‘Rehbraun’ and ‘Cloud Nine’: “I like to use very large drifts for best effect surrounding evergreen shrubs.”
https://www.ft.com/content/57c95e5d-65e7-42b3-b205-a468007c0a8c
Interviewed by Clare Coulson for FT How to Spend It, November 12th 2021
“I wanted to create an immersive feel where one feels surrounded by plants despite being up in the air. The continuous edge planters maximise green space whilst ensuring the design is practical, with adequate floor space for furniture as well as built-in benches with liftable lids for storage. Edible herbs and two trees add to the sense of verdant enclosure whilst wall lights ensure the space is usable once the sun has gone down.”
Interviewed by Claire Morrisroe for the Metro, September 21st 2021
Alexandra Noble’s Balcony Garden provides a secluded seating area cocooned by soft, grassy planting, with two multi-stemmed Euonymus planipes flanking a small table and chairs. The autumnal hues of the leaves are picked up in the graceful flowers of Molinia caerulea ‘Heidebraut’ and the fronds of Anemanthele lessoniana, while plants such as Alpine strawberries and salad burnet are planted underneath, showing how easy it is to combine edible and ornamental plants.
https://www.houseandgarden.co.uk/gallery/chelsea-flower-show-highlights-2021
Clare Foster for House & Garden (Online), September 20th 2021
The Chelsea Flower Show’s autumn debut
https://www.ft.com/content/8f0077cb-c9fb-418e-b6cc-0fc1d40c7655
Robin Lane Fox for The Financial Times, September 2021
The Guide to Balcony Gardening
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-guide-to-balcony-gardening-5szdjl0ff
Alice Vincent for The Sunday Times, September 5th 2021
“There’s a real sense of optimism when sowing seeds,” says the garden designer Alexandra Noble (@alexandra.noble), 32, of the nation’s current obsession with cultivating even the smallest patch of soil. “Repetitive tasks such as deadheading help us slow down, allow the mind time to reflect and let us feel more in the moment.” There’s now a wealth of information shared on social media too: ‘‘And it’s a real privilege to have this expertise at our fingertips. The ability to connect with others who share a similar passion is a huge plus.”
Interviewed by Clare Coulson for Sunday Times Style Magazine, September 5th 2021
Three years ago, Alexandra Noble designed a garden of strikingly airy simplicity for the Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival. Visitor’s were delighted by the Health and Wellbeing Garden’s winding meditation path and ethereal planting of pale umbels and voted it People’s Choice in its category. One person went further by commissioning Alexandra to create a version for her west London garden.
“Her heart is in the countryside and she wanted to feel in contact with nature,” says Alexandra of the owner of the Chiswick house. “The show garden’s atmosphere spoke to her. By chance, her own garden - at just 8 metres by 8 metres - was the same size. So she could visualise something similar in her own space.”
Today, that vision has become a reality of almost otherworldly prettiness, filled with clouds of Cenolophium denudatum, Anthriscus sylvestris ‘Ravenswing’ and Chaerophyllum hirsutum ‘Roseum’. A pale gravel path edged with porphyry setts meanders through the space, passing a table and chairs, and a wooden armchair tucked away in a corner for quiet contemplation. Mixed native hedges run down each side of the garden and the end wall is covered in a fan-trained fig with fragrant shrub roses below.
“That fig was already in the garden,” says Alexandra. “But it was growing against an unremarkable fence on one side and I thought it deserved to be centre stage.” Moving it also allowed her to plant a hedgerow in a tapestry mix, including hazel, hawthorn and field maple. This has not only hidden the fence, but also created habitats for wildlife and introduced masses of seasonal interest, from spring blossom to autumn berries. “People worry that a hedge will take up too much space in a small garden. But, if anything, it makes it feel bigger, by adding depth while blurring the boundaries.”
Although Alexandra is known for her ephemeral borders, she has an authoritative command of structural planting and spatial organisation, honed during six years studying architecture at the University of Bath. “I love the counterpoint between beautiful, simple architecture and effervescent, feminine planting,” she says. “I’ve always had a strong visual sense and a love of gardening was passed on to me by my grandparents, who pointed out flowers and encouraged me to rub a fragrant leaf. I just didn’t realise those could come together in a career, until I got a work placement with a landscape firm between my fifth and sixth years at university.”
Alexandra began a shift towards landscape architecture, before her artistic instincts led her to apply for a job with garden designer Luciano Giubbilei. “Everything came together there and I knew I’d found my vocation,” she says. When she designed her Health and Wellbeing Garden at Hampton Court, she had been running her own practice for just a year, but already had a reputation as a talented newcomer who could handle the practicalities of budgets and construction while creating gardens touched with whimsy.
“I’m enthralled by the changing of the seasons,” she says. “This garden dies right down in the winter, with just a touch of structure provided by Euphorbia characias subsp. wulfenii, Daphne ‘Eternal Frangrance’, Hebe rakaiensis, Polystichum setiferum and Libertia grandiflora in the main beds.” It takes a brave client to embrace such a radical reflection of the passing year and Alexandra has been delighted to see how the Chiswick garden has stayed true to her original concept: “When you design a garden, you hand it over to the owners. It acquires a life of its own with the passage of time and the hand of the person who gardens it. Here, I was very fortunate that our visions were perfectly aligned”
https://www.houseandgarden.co.uk/gallery/august-2021-issue
Interviewed by Jodie Jones for House & Garden, August 2021
The best gardens to visit in the UK this spring, according to the experts
The i Paper, 27th March 2021
“In terms of planting, my style is whimsical. I like to contrast how wafty those plants are with very hard, solid materials,” she says. She loves the optimism of gardening. “I like imagining what the future will look like… in the depths of winter, we’ll have a witch hazel with some cyclamen underneath it. It’s creating those moments that I find really exciting.”
https://www.vogue.co.uk/arts-and-lifestyle/article/female-gardeners-uk
Interviewed by Kate Finnigan for British Vogue, October 2020
London-based Alexandra Noble trained as an architect before moving into landscape design, a pedigree that comes through in her work, which has transformed gardens from Hampstead to Ealing into thoughtful arrangements of space, colour and texture. And, like an architect, Noble can get minimal too: her courtyard garden in west London is a single cherry tree artfully positioned next to a cantilevered glass box that protrudes from the house – très zen
https://www.themodernhouse.com/journal/best-landscape-designers-directory/
The Modern House, May 23rd 2020
Alexandra studied architecture and worked for Luciano Giubbilei Design before starting her eponymous business in 2017. She favours flower-rich planting schemes to help promote biodiversity and counteract environmental damage
Why garden design? “I really love the collaborative process of making gardens and especially relish the chance to work with expert growers, as well as renowned suppliers”
Describe your style? “I’m drawn to design that has a hint of the ephemeral, whimsical or surreal. I’m also a believer in simplicity of layout and limiting the number of different materials used in a scheme”
Do you have any signature plants and materials? “I’ve long loved umbellifers, grasses and herbs. I particularly enjoy juxtaposing naturalistic plants with hard materials that have a sense of solidity”
Your garden design inspirations? “Peter Zumthor’s Hortus Conclusus Serpentine Pavilion (2011) with planting by Piet Oudolf, has stayed with me vividly. I also love the work of American minimal artists Donald Judd and Carl Andre”
Currently working on.. “I have just finished the planting design for a garden overlooking Hampstead Heath Ponds, and I am now working on other private residential projects across the South of England”
Sum up your work in three words “Romantic, considered, geometric”
Interviewed by Natasha Goodfellow for ELLE Decoration, July 2020
Minimalism might not be something you associate with garden design, but Alexandra Noble’s restrained compositions prove good landscaping can be just so. The cherry tree she installed in the middle of a walled garden in west London is proof of her pared-back approach.
https://www.themodernhouse.com/journal/new-designers-and-architects/
The Modern House, May 14th 2019
For London garden designer Alexandra Noble hanging planters are an opportunity to unite your inside and outside space.
“If you have ferns indoors, consider growing those that are outdoor-tolerant to echo these. Cluster baskets together in different heights and sizes.” For a minimalist look she recommends Euphorbia ‘Diamond Frost’: “Incredible en masse.”
Interviewed by Alex Mitchell for the Evening Standard, May 8th 2019
Alexandra Noble’s meditation garden features a reflective pond and a continuous waterway — with no start or end — to inspire a sense of being in the moment. But her favourite creation is her chamomile couch and pouffe — planted with a cushion of tightly packed chamomile, which releases a calming fragrance when sat upon. Alexandra, 29, says: “It is so powerful it brings you instantly back into the present moment and then as you breathe, it calms both mind and spirit.”
Interviewed by Claire Morrisroe for the Metro, July 4th 2018
Alexandra Noble’s Health and Wellbeing Garden is an enticing courtyard of rills, pools and cobbles with clouds of umbellifers that seem to float above it. At 8x8m, it’s one many with small gardens could take inspiration from. The curving path leading to a camomile bench has no obvious beginning and end and all the plants have healing properties.
Alex Mitchell for the Evening Standard, July 3rd 2018
A new look at medicinal plants. When it comes to Hampton Court, this isn’t Alexandra Noble’s first rodeo – trained as an architect, she designed a garden here in 2014 after winning a competition hosted by The One Show. But she has decided to try something new for this year’s event. “I started thinking about medicinal edible plants,” Noble explains. “It isn’t a plant palette that I had explored that much, so I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to work with plants that have always excited me but I’ve never worked with.” Such plants range from yarrow to cardoons and even celery.
The aim is to create a “naturalistic, floaty, dreamlike” scheme that will provide masses of fragrance around a clever continuous path that takes its inspiration from both abstract art and meditative process – even if it didn’t induce one during its creation. “Hopefully, it looks effortless – but it wasn’t effortless,” Noble laughs. “I spent hours in my studio sketching out models of how you could get that feeling of vitality on quite a low budget.”
A bench topped with the fluffy, double-flowered blooms of Chamaemelum nobile ‘Flore Pleno’ – an old Roman camomile (below) – will aid the vision, along with a reflective pool. Noble is hoping to let the sculpture and scent do the talking. “I’m hoping it’s going to be very calming,” she says. “I’ve purposefully kept it simple, so the plants will just speak for themselves.”
Interviewed by Alice Vincent for the Telegraph, 30th June 2018
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/mandg-chelsea-flower-show/low-maintenance-plants-for-garden/
Caroline Wheater for the Telegraph, 11th May 2018
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/mandg-chelsea-flower-show/garden-revamp-ideas/
Caroline Wheater for the Telegraph, 27th April 2018
I was looking for something special, a garden that stood out, and I decided to take a romp around and judge gardens by sight and their titles alone. What would they mean to me without the blurb from a press release, I wondered?
My favourite was quite a surprise. I'd been involved in the launching of a competition among BBC One Show viewers for a garden design. The winner, Alexandra Noble, created hers for the Hampton Court Show.
It was seemingly inspired by the Roman City Of Bath and what she created was a pure simple delight - a wispy, sunken contemporary courtyard, not very deep, with a formal arrangement of ink-black square ponds set into a golden rammed gravel terrain.
The planting Included grasses, rosemary and pennisetum pushing up through the ground-cover material, softening the scene and creating quite a magical tapestry.
I thought this was a magnificent display. It wasn't filled with stuff. There was a confidence and a clarity that ensured all the elements - planting, hard landscaping and water - could be clearly seen. Sinking the plot, even by just a couple of feet, is a massive job but it allowed visitors to look into something.
To me it was the best in show
Diarmuid Gavin for the Daily Mirror, 12th July 2014
..not in competition but promises to have all the requisites for a gold medal
Annie Gatti for The Telegraph, 5th July 2014