When Bill Noble first saw the Vermont property that would become his garden, it seemed overwhelming.
“It was a wonderful landscape, awe-inspiring, but it was huge,” he recalls thinking of that day nearly 30 years ago, when he looked from the deck behind a humble 1830s farmhouse, through hayfields and woods, out onto the mountain. White hillsides. “Far far beyond the size of anything I could imagine in gardening.”
But he did gardening there, with all the work geared toward one resounding goal: creating connection.
As he writes in a new book, Spirit of Place: The Making of a New England Garden: “So much of what gardening is about is feeling connected to a place, promoting a sense of belonging, and learning about the natural rhythms and cycles of a particular piece of land.”
Although Mr. Noble, garden designer and former director of conservation at the Garden Conservancy, tells the story of his own garden, he is an objective lesson about the considerations involved in creating any garden.
In Mr. Noble’s environment, the process involved two types of efforts. He highlighted the best landscapes with their rural character and agricultural history. At the same time, he developed many human spaces within his borders – among them a flower garden, another vegetable garden, a rock garden and a number of attractive places to sit for a while.
“I’ve tried to create a variety of places to grow, be, or work,” he said. “All it took was seven bare-rooted Lombardy poplars and some vertical greens, and that changed everything.”
To create a garden that belongs context and emotionally to its surroundings, Mr. Noble asks clients the same thing he asked of himself: to establish guidelines.
“The process is a self-assessment: what really matters to me?” He said. “As a designer, I need to understand the context – the surrounding environment, the landscape and the architecture – as well as how a person uses the space and their goals as a gardener.”
One of the guiding principles for his own garden is stated in the book: “Plants should be the primary means of creating structure and utility, rather than architecture or garden decoration.”
He said Mr. Noble used plants “to create sight lines to highlight nearby farm fields and distant mountains”. “And to make sure I no longer see what was on my neighbor’s TV every evening.”
His practice, then, is about strategic plant positioning—whether it is to frame, erase, or just show off and delight. Determining the right plant for each task is not just about size, but also about shape, color, and even texture, and the seasons in which it presents the characteristics.
Mr. Noble shared some of the lessons he learned about strategic plant placement along the way.
Find your ‘Preference Points’
Garden design (or improvement) begins not only with getting around the outdoors, but with going inside and looking from different places in your home, recording potential views from key places.
“Determine where the best views are and where you want the garden or landscape to offer its best,” Mr. Noble said. “Is it a window? The roof? The porch? First, find your best.”
He said he knew right away that the view from his dining room window was “the most beautiful view from the inside out,” and that “the garden should be well shown from the deck.”
Let’s consider the quieter season as well, and “consider going from falling snow to falling snow,” Mr. Noble said. “Select focal points to draw you in, even in the months when you’re not abroad.”
Most locations don’t have as clear a field of view as theirs, but if you frame a smaller slice of the borrowed landscape it can make a big difference, creating the illusion of expansion.
What should be erased?
Noble said it’s hard to imagine a garden in the making where nothing needs to be hidden, whether it’s a propane tank — or an entire house. A large, bright house with a distracting TV was to the west of his property and a plot of land just sold in the east also needed to be addressed.
Primarily seeking deer-resistant greenery in the first place, Mr. Noble planted a meandering row of Norway spruce—which, unlike some conifers, can retain its lower branches as they get older. He added a net of apple trees inside, as if there was an orchard.
Results? “What was originally meant to be a utilitarian screen is now one of the true joys of the garden,” he said.
Sometimes a single well-placed plant can do the job, and Mr. Noble thanks the gardener who has lived in his house for the 60 years before him for one such placement. He said, “I effectively erased any awareness of the telephone pole with a white absorbent magenta.”
Or maybe the road is the problem
Like many older homes, Mr. Noble is located close to the road – only 25 feet away – which limits his sense of privacy, but also means unwanted noise.
“In the 1830s, people were really happy to see people go by,” he said. “But we wanted more privacy from inside the house, and when I’m outside in the garden.”
Some people build sound barriers; Mr. Noble uses plants. A side benefit: “Our temporary baffle keeps out dust, too—we live on a dirt road.”
For these and all sorting jobs, which tend to be in less maintained areas, Mr. Noble creates a decision matrix before selecting plants. His own criteria included whether the plant under study was very hardy and could survive as a deer. Was it fair to disease and pest resistant, and how much care, including pruning, required? How will you perform over the years? Some small farmers age poorly.
He considered the aggressiveness and affordability of the plant, since it is likely that complications will be required. Whether the plant was native and of wildlife value was also of interest to Mr. Noble, who favored native dogwood shrubs, willows, sumacs, and amelanchieres in more resilient areas.
Not all screenings require a solid wall (even from plants)
While a traditional hedge — an extension of a single plant such as a hornbeam or tree — has its purpose, Mr. Noble prefers a less traditional method of screening.
For a client whose balcony felt too bare, take a three-tiered approach. Along the way, he chose mixed plantings of pine, hemlock, dogwood, and birch. On the lawn, a strategically located deciduous tree created a sense of privacy between the road and the house. The final touch: a splash of lilac on the balcony corner.
“They all serve the same purpose, which is to check the road for people on the balcony,” he said. “But nobody thinks it’s being shown.”
Don’t forget: screens have two sides
Mr. Noble said, when examining along a road or other common border, he remembered both sides.
“I prefer a more generous mixture of conifers and shrubs on the general side of a hedge,” he said.
Inside, it forms the backdrop to a more intimate garden space, with perennials and herbs. “The plants themselves act as a backbone,” he said, “but the point of view of each side is completely different.”
The displays can be made less impressive by offering what Mr. Noble calls “pocket views,” such as his carefully placed recess in a willow hedge: “I wanted to give passersby one peek.”
If it will change the neighbor’s point of view, discuss it first
The neighbors whose house Mr. Noble wanted to hide are friends, so he informed them of this ahead of time.
“The surprise was that they wanted the show,” he recalls. “I was worried I’d affect their view, but it gave them more space in the backyard – and they didn’t have to look at us.”
Then they took another step forward: “We made our way so we could walk back and forth to each other’s gardens. We checked, but we also made an invitation to visit.”
The figure is part of the painting
When Mr. Noble needed to “put an end to the garden,” he said, he used the Lombardy tree and DeGroot’s Spire arborvitae.
Poplars punctuate the field’s edge, indicating the adjacent quarters of flower and vegetable gardens, but most of all “the garden is not infinite; it ends here.”
Vertical shapes draw the eye upwards. “Remember that the sky is part of the garden too — and clouds and even storms,” he advised.
As counterpoints, Mr. Noble said that shrubs of low, rounded shapes, especially those with wine-colored foliage, have “a density that helps ground the garden.”
Colors can be strategic
Some plants visually advance saying “look at me,” especially those with silver or gold foliage. The variegated leaves of gold, yellow and white are also refreshing and attract the eye.
Cornus sericea Silver and Gold, a twig native dogwood with variegated white foliage and golden stems, is a standby. Maroon also became a signature. “Shrubs with burgundy leaves improve the color palette of flowering perennials,” Noble said. “It shows off the blues, pinks, and silver foliage really well.”
Repetition creates continuity
Repeating signature decisions—and plants—unifies the design.
Mr. Noble added a poplar at each end of the far garden, as well as an additional vertical shrub away from the rest. “This strategic repetition tells you that you are in the same park,” he noted.
Essential Extras: Shady Shelter, Private Place
Plan to create a shady spot—or at least include a shade tree.
Even better, Mr Noble said, would be to plant a number of trees grouped together, “to create space and shade, a great place for people to gather.” His Grassland Choices: Birch leaf and aspen shiver.
And all gardens, no matter how big or small, need one special place. Mr. Noble set a teak bench in the shade of an old apple propped up by a stone wall, a spot that affords a long view across birch to the hillsides.
“You need shelter,” he said. “My place is that seat—checked above from the road, but with a more intimate cultivation around it telling me that’s where I want to go.”
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