Mark Alexander | Palm Wallcovering

Palm is a grasscloth wallcovering woven from a broad natural fibre, and the scale of the weave is what sets it apart from the finer papers in the range. You can read each pass of the fibre clearly, and the small shadow it casts gives the wall a real depth. There is no repeat and no print. The colour varies a little along every length, which is the fibre taking dye unevenly, and that is the quality we specify it for.

Rolls are 91 centimetres wide and 7.32 metres long, with no repeat to allow for. There are seven colourways. Whitewash, Powder and Natural cover the pale ground, Natural being closest to the undyed fibre. Harvest is the warm gold. Typhoon is the grey. Atlantic is a deep blue and Pimento a dry red, and those two are the ones we use when a room needs the wall to hold colour rather than defer to it.

We use it over whole rooms in a study or a dressing room, and along a hall where the texture reads well in passing light. It is also good behind open shelving, where the fibre gives the objects something to sit against. With the stronger colourways, keep everything else quiet: plain linen at the window, matt paint on the joinery, a wool or jute floor. Order a sample to see it in your own light.

Paste the wall rather than the paper, and use a paperhanger with grasscloth experience, because the open weave holds paste and will mark if the face is worked. Order every roll in one batch and check the batch numbers before cutting, and add a spare roll for later repairs. Panel-to-panel colour variation is inherent to a woven grass and should be planned for; lay the rolls out and sequence the drops before hanging.

• Roll size: 91 cm wide x 7.32 m long
• Pattern repeat: No repeat
• Suitable for: Full rooms, feature walls, studies, halls, dressing rooms
• Care: Wipe gently with a soft, dry cloth
• Collection: Grasscloth II, Mark Alexander
• Colourways: 7 (Atlantic, Typhoon, Pimento, Harvest, Whitewash and 2 more)