Alnarp Green by Borastapeter, a soft green wooded landscape wallpaper in a sitting room with a grey painted armoire, two Gustavian chairs and a dark round table with yellow flowers
Decorating Notes

Where Science Meets Beauty: The Case for Botanical Wallpaper

By Wallpaper Sales

Half art, half natural history, botanical wallpaper brings the quiet precision of the great plant illustrators to the wall. It is the most graceful way there is to fill a home with green.

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Botanical design has its roots in one of history's great adventures. As explorers and plant hunters returned from the far corners of the world in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, they brought back extraordinary new species, and a small army of artists set about recording them with astonishing accuracy.

The botanical illustration, at once a scientific document and a thing of real beauty, was born, and the herbariums and flower books of that age remain some of the loveliest objects ever made. What separates a botanical from a simple floral is that reverence for the plant itself, the leaf and the stem and the structure, drawn with an almost scholarly care.

"The botanical print was at once a scientific record and a thing of genuine beauty."

An Age of Discovery

The debt to the flower book is plain in all of these. Wild Chervil in Mustard & Pewter, from Clarissa Hulse, draws cow parsley in fine white line across an ochre ground, seedhead by seedhead, and Rowen Botanical in Light Blue, from Jardin by York Wallcoverings, does much the same in blue grey on white, leaves and berries and all.

Restraint is its own kind of study. Emmalisa in Sandstone, from Kolonin II by Sandberg, is barely there, a few trailing stems laid across a sandstone wall. Mystic in Mist, from Solstice by Graham & Brown, gilds its trees and seedheads across a sage ground, which is the same patient observation done in gold.

Wild Chervil in Mustard and Pewter by Clarissa Hulse, fine white cow parsley drawn across an ochre wall behind a wooden framed armchair, a black floor lamp and a window showing autumn leaves

Wild Chervil, Mustard & Pewter by Clarissa Hulse

Rowen Botanical in Light Blue by York Wallcoverings, a blue grey line drawing of leaves and berries on white, behind a cream sofa, a brass floor lamp and a small table holding lilac

Rowen Botanical, Light Blue by York Wallcoverings

Emmalisa Sandstone by Sandberg, fine white trailing stems on a sandstone wall beside a door thrown open to a garden, with a straw basket hanging on the door

Emmalisa, Sandstone by Sandberg

Mystic Mist by Graham and Brown, gold drawn trees and seedheads across a sage green wall in a bedroom, with a curved wooden headboard, linen bedding and a brass mushroom lamp

Mystic, Mist by Graham & Brown

Green, and Calm, and Good for Us

Botanical designs are the picture of the biophilic mood, our deep and well documented need to keep nature close. Green has become the colour decorators return to again and again, borrowing its calm straight from the landscape, and a botanical delivers all of that restful greenery with the added elegance of something studied and refined. It brings a room the freshness of a garden and the composure of a gallery at once.

"Botanical wallpaper is nature, tidied and framed, and it soothes a busy mind."

Green need not mean timid, mind. Karuna in Apple / Denim, from Ananda by Osborne & Little, lays an ink blue drawing over an apple green ground, which is a braver green than most rooms are given. Cabbage Check, from Josephine Munsey, trails its leaves in teal over cream, and is the most quietly charming thing in this post.

Karuna Apple and Denim by Osborne and Little, an ink blue botanical drawn over an apple green ground, behind a wooden framed armchair upholstered in blue and white floral and a green pedestal table

Karuna, Apple / Denim by Osborne & Little

Cabbage Check by Josephine Munsey, teal cabbage leaves trailing over a cream ground behind an antique dark wood spindle back chair with a linen cushion

Cabbage Check by Josephine Munsey

How and Where to Use It

Botanical is one of the most liveable of all the looks. A soft, detailed botanical brings a garden like serenity to a bedroom or a bathroom, while a bolder, larger scale design makes an elegant statement in a hallway, a study or a dining room. It has a natural affinity with light filled rooms and with anywhere that opens onto a garden, and it pairs beautifully with natural materials and a few real plants.

The grandest of them do not come on a roll at all. Lingering Garden in Sky Blue, from Classics by York, is blossom and birds on sky blue and arrives as a fixed panel, as does Lotus in Aloe, from Random Chinoiseries by Coordonné, a lotus pond with koi and bamboo. Aranya in Champagne, from Mysuru by Arte, is sold by the metre, a large tonal leaf in champagne on champagne. And Tyra in Garden Green, from Kolonin II by Sandberg, is a whole meadow sold by the square metre, so it costs precisely what your wall costs.

Lingering Garden Sky Blue by York Wallcoverings, a mural of white blossom branches, birds and bees on sky blue, behind a carved round table with cane chairs on a chequered floor

Lingering Garden, Sky Blue by York Wallcoverings

Lotus Aloe by Coordonne, a green chinoiserie mural of a lotus pond with koi and bamboo, above a long wooden dining table with three rattan pendant lights

Lotus, Aloe by Coordonné

Aranya Champagne by Arte, large tonal leaf forms in champagne on champagne in a dining room with a pale wood table and a sculptural bronze branch chandelier

Aranya, Champagne by Arte

Tyra Garden Green by Sandberg, a green and pink meadow covering the walls of a garden room, with a casement window thrown open, a watering can on the sill and a woven seat chair

Tyra, Garden Green by Sandberg

None of which need be expensive. Albero Garden in Light Green, from Blooming Garden by Galerie, is £47.21 a roll, and Oak & Willow in Sage, from William Morris at Home, is £49.60. A dining nook and a bedroom, and between them rather less than the cost of a single Coordonné panel.

Albero Garden Light Green by Galerie, a light green design of trees, birds and blossom in a dining nook with a skirted round table, blue striped cushions and a bentwood chair

Albero Garden, Light Green by Galerie

Oak and Willow Sage by William Morris at Home, a sage and pink all over floral in a bedroom with a cane headboard, white pillows and sage green panelling below

Oak & Willow, Sage by William Morris at Home

Keep the palette gentle and let the greenery lead, or set one dramatic botanical against calm, quiet surroundings. Look to houses such as Sanderson, Clarke & Clarke and Harlequin as well, and browse the whole botanical collection, or leaves and trailing leaves if you want the stem without the flower. Order a sample first to judge those greens truly in your own light.

And then there is the other end of the scale entirely. Leaves Shadow in Gold, from Random Metallics II by Coordonné, is the boldest thing here by some distance, oversized gold banana leaves thrown across a dark bronze ground at £1,179.04 the panel. It is not a quiet botanical, and has no intention of being one.

Leaves Shadow Gold by Coordonne, oversized gold banana leaves on a dark bronze ground in a beamed room with a cream boucle sofa, a low wooden table and two arched curtained openings

Leaves Shadow, Gold by Coordonné

The plant hunters crossed oceans to bring these wonders home. The rest of us need only unroll them.

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