Noël Kingsbury is a leading expert in contemporary naturalistic planting design. He contributes regularly to Hortus, Homes and Gardens, The English Garden, and the Royal Horticultural Society's magazine, The Garden. He occasionally writes pieces for other magazines and newspapers including Financial Times and Country Life. Noël lectures regularly in the United States at places such as the Seattle Flower Show, the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, and the Rochester Civic Garden Center.
Noël is a well-known writer on plants and gardens. He has always been firmly in the vanguard of new developments, playing a major role in popularizing a more naturalistic and sustainable planting style.
He wrote Designing with Plants with designer Piet Oudolf and is associated with the Landscape Department at the University of Sheffield as part of his active involvement in promoting quality planting in public spaces.
A lover of wild spaces and wildflowers growing in their natural environment, Noël emphasizes growing gardens in a way that expresses this passion. He is especially fond of the way plants group naturally when left to their own devices. Noël loves discovering good examples of large-scale, natural-style gardens or plantings that clearly evoke nature. He is pleased to be part of the naturalistic planting movement and believes that "Gardening for myself and for a lot of people is an opportunity to be close to nature."
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Interview with
Noël Kingsbury
Timber Press: What first attracted you to natural-style gardening, and what continues to inspire you to take this approach?
Noel Kingsbury: I love wild spaces and wildflowers growing in their natural environment, so it seems obvious to want to grow them in the garden in a way that reflects this, particularly the way that plants combine. And I've seen some very good examples of large-scale, natural-style gardening, or plantings that clearly evoke nature. There is more and more good work around that does this, and it is good to be part of this movement.
TP: In your introduction, you say, "The core of the book is an attempt to explain how plants grow in nature, and how we gardeners can put this knowledge to use by creating spaces which are enriching both for us and for wild creatures." How do gardening and gardens enrich you?
NK: Gardening for myself and for a lot of people is an opportunity to be close to nature, or at least natural processes, and many of us appreciate wildlife in the garden (if not all of it! – deer etc) and want to feel that we can manage a little bit of the earth for wildlife. I like having things around me that I know come from far away places, and especially if they are plants I have seen growing somewhere then that creates a real sense of connection.
TP: How do you define a "small" garden?
NK: Very roughly, I suppose, under 1/4 an acre.
TP: You describe various types of habitats in your book. Is there one habitat that particularly interests you? Why?
NK: I like grasslands, meadows and prairies, there is so much going on, such density of species. I am aware of loving complexity, and fractal levels of complexity, like in Islamic and Baroque art, where there are patterns within patterns. All natural habitats have this, but grasslands have it to the highest level on a scale that one can take in. My experience of these habitats is largely in central and eastern Europe, I have only visited the prairie in early November, but that was an amazing experience, it seemed like every square metre of ground had a different combination of plants to every other. I am dying to get back to the mid-west at a better time one year and get a better look.
TP: This book exudes a strong "can do" attitude toward creating a "slice of wilderness" almost anywhere. Has there ever been a gardening dilemma that you thought at first was insurmountable, but that later you were able to solve through thinking "outside of the box"?
NK: Dry shade under trees is a nightmare! There are no easy answers. Chop the tree down? If you have a small urban garden then this may be the only place you can garden. A good tree surgeon can lighten the branching, keeping the essential character of the tree but letting more light through, and this will reduce the amount of water loss from the soil too, and maybe lets in more light for you and the neighbours. Pollarding works with many deciduous trees, but I don't know whether this is ever done in North America. People can be so stupid about tree planting in urban areas, there are so many good narrow light trees for town planting and yet they don't get planted often enough.
TP: What do you hope readers will take away from your book?
NK: A sense that they can pack a lot of bio-diversity into a small space, that they can surround themselves with nature in urban areas, that the city does not have to be a desert.
