Shocking Beauty: Thomas Hobbs' Innovative Garden Vision

Rating:
Summary: Making your own WOW! Garden
Review: Here's the book that encourages each of us to "flaunt it" in the garden, to allow our sensuous, perhaps slightly mischievous selves to really let go and have fun with unexpected plant combinations. I've read and re-read it several times, keep it by my bedside and refer to it often for inspiration. Having visited a number of the gardens photographed I can appreciate the effectiveness of this passionate approach to gardening.

Rating:
Summary: Making your own WOW! Garden
Review: Here's the book that encourages each of us to "flaunt it" in the garden, to allow our sensuous, perhaps slightly mischievous selves to really let go and have fun with unexpected plant combinations. I've read and re-read it several times, keep it by my bedside and refer to it often for inspiration. Having visited a number of the gardens photographed I can appreciate the effectiveness of this passionate approach to gardening.

Rating:
Summary: Beautiful gardens, good ideas and a dose of snobbery
Review: Hobbes states on page 4 that "A total lack of inspiration is a sign of laziness" and "Lazy people should not garden because they end up demonstrating their nature publicly." A very harsh judgement indeed - and very sad for the experimental gardener. He continues to congratulate himself throughout the book, which is unnecessary because he designs beautiful gardens.

On the other hand, the photos are beautiful - albeit some with the obvious help of alterations made by a computer and not the gardener.

Hobbes does share lovely ideas that can easily be taken to your own garden and used no matter what your budget and size considerations. I particularly like the good descriptions of the plantings in the photos and the wide variety of settings. Solutions are simple in these gardens and they are beautiful at the same time. He challenges us to try new groupings of colors and shapes (I guess only in the framework of his idea of "vision").

If you love beautiful, expensive books of gardens that can give you good ideas, this book can be worth every penny. I am not sorry I bought it.

Rating:
Summary: One of the most inspirational gardening books ever published
Review: I just absolutely love this book! The photos are stunning, and one of my favorite occupations last winter was to get this book out and page through it to help me cure spring fever. In other words, it makes a terrific coffee-table book, but it is much more than that.

If you are looking for inspiration as to how to come up with some dramatic combinations for your garden, I GUARANTEE you will come up with some good ideas from this book. You will also find some to-die-for plants that you will absolutely have to search out and buy as soon as the season is right to try them out.

. . . You will even seriously consider whether there is some legal way to track down and befriend some of the people whose gardens are featured in this book, just so that you could have a peek at stuff like this in real life!

Rating:
Summary: Shocking Beauty: Thomas Hobbs' Innovative Garden Vision
Review: I just absolutely love this book! The photos are stunning, and one of my favorite occupations last winter was to get this book out and page through it to help me cure spring fever. In other words, it makes a terrific coffee-table book, but it is much more than that.

If you are looking for inspiration as to how to come up with some dramatic combinations for your garden, I GUARANTEE you will come up with some good ideas from this book. You will also find some to-die-for plants that you will absolutely have to search out and buy as soon as the season is right to try them out.

. . . You will even seriously consider whether there is some legal way to track down and befriend some of the people whose gardens are featured in this book, just so that you could have a peek at stuff like this in real life!

Rating:
Summary: This book is simply beautiful!
Review: The photographs in this book live up to the title from the cover photograph that brings out the hortisexual in all of us (uncontrolled lust for plants) to the plants and gardens selected and showcased. Plants of interest are well identified as are the gardens in which they grow. The text is clear and interesting and readable. Many "old" and easily attainable plants are shown in new combinations that will inspire gardeners to rearrange yet again. SHOCKING BEAUTY is a pleasure to read and makes a wonderful gift. Kudos to the photographers, too: Tom Hobbs, David McDonald, Jerry Harpur, Charles Price, Glenn Withey and Allan Mandell. Nice job!

Rating:
Summary: One of the most inspirational gardening books ever published
Review: This is an exquisite, sophisticated and very accessible book. Some of the plant pairings are very subtle, yet these are the combinations which are shockingly beautiful. This book successfully illustrates the relationships and/or contrasts between relatively available plants that create a beautiful tension.
Of course, it doesn't hurt to have an artistic eye.
I have had this book for a few years and I pull it out every few weeks, always seeing something new or in a new way. A superb book for new gardeners.

Rating:
Summary: Superb Garden Book!
Review: Thomas Hobbs has the eye and the courage of a great artist. He paints and sculpts with living plants, and although he prefers the daring and innovative, it is always beautiful, never grotesque. He has forever changed the way I, for one, see the garden, because he is articulate as well as artistic. Bravo for a superb book!