House Beautiful Magazine
"Thomas Hobbs' words are as empowering as the photographs of unexpected plant combinations, striking colors, and unconventional garden scenes."


Knight Ridder Newspapers
"...illustrated with scores of photos...jaw dropping moments can be caused by gardens that look deceptively simple and natural."


The Sacramento Bee
"More than 200 photos will keep you turning the same pages again and again...a must see gardening book."


Pacific Horticulture Magazine
"The nearly two hundred color photographs in Shocking Beauty provide plenty of detail, inspiration, and sheer beauty."


Book Description
"Portable Drama," "Staging Incidents," "Zonal Denial" - all these and more concepts presented by iconoclastic and trend-setting garden visionary Thomas Hobbs in this challenging, cutting-edge book on innovative garden design. Using examples from exceptional gardens throughout North America and Europe, Hobbs shows how freeing up the mind from the bonds of conventional garden design concepts can result in gardens of singular allure. Hobbs attests that we can learn from Nature how best to blend color, texture, and species of plants to create beauty in the garden. Luxuriantly illustrated with over 190 striking four-color photographs, this thought-provoking book is a fount of ideas you can use to invigorate your garden's visual appeal.


About the Author
Thomas Hobbs, internationally known impresario of garden and floral design, is proprietor of Southlands Nursery in Vancouver, Canada. His private garden has been featured in many prominent gardening magazines. A frequent media commentator on gardening matters, Hobbs has spoken before gardening groups and professional associations throughout North America.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"Portable Drama," "Staging Incidents," "Zonal Denial" - all these and more concepts presented by iconoclastic and trend-setting garden visionary Thomas Hobbs in this challenging, cutting-edge book on innovative garden design. Using examples from exceptional gardens throughout North America and Europe, Hobbs shows how freeing up the mind from the bonds of conventional garden design concepts can result in gardens of singular allure. Hobbs attests that we can learn from Nature how best to blend color, texture, and species of plants to create beauty in the garden. Luxuriantly illustrated with over 190 striking four-color photographs, this thought-provoking book is a fount of ideas you can use to invigorate your garden's visual appeal.

FROM THE CRITICS

Steve Silk - Fine Gardening

Thomas Hobbs gardens out on the cutting edge of contemporary horticulture. Daring color combinations, foliage with startling hues, hordes of tender perennials, and big, blowsy tropical plants are just some of the ingredients that go into making his eye-popping garden in Vancouver. Hobbs is one of the foremost proponents of a visually striking style that's rapidly gaining favor among cognoscenti, and examples abound all over the Pacific Northwest and in many of North America's best public gardens.

Those who love it will delight in the inspiring, almost luridly colorful photographs that fill the pages of this gardening manifesto. They will delight, too, in the brief, essaylike chapters that are a virtual call to arms, an impassioned plea to liberate ourselves from the confines of stodgy, traditional design and to create our gardens with an electrifying sense of drama and flamboyance.