Shocking beauty - Thomas Hobbs

Find inspiration and fresh ideas with this beautifully photographed garden design book.

In Shocking Beauty, visionary garden impresario Thomas Hobbs offers his original and trendsetting treatises on garden design.
In inspiring essays such as "Portable drams", "Staging Incidents" and "Zonal Denial, Hobbs uses examples from exceptional gardens throughout North America and Europe to demonstrate how a garden freed from the bonds of conventional design can result in spaces of singular and startling allure.
Hobbs suggests that nature is the best teacher for blending color, texture and plant species to create "shocking beauty" in a garden.

Shocking Beauty offers an in-depth gardening book with a twist-it enables you to discover what it takes to stop people in their tracks and realize how stunning nature can be.
Illustrated with over 200 striking full-color photographs, this thought-provoking book will inspire people who've never gardened before and invigorate the passions of those who already know the joy of gardening.

Garden design topics include:

• Inspiration
• Zonal Denial
• Good Neighbors
• High Tension
• Color: Cause & Effect
• Staging Incidents
• Portable Drama
• Home
• Visions

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.

"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." -Fine Gardening

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

"This is an extraordinary book…Hobbs is an extraordinary gardener and writer and his book is a testimonial to his own knowledge of, and dedication to, the art and techniques of gardening…The photos, which range from dazzling flowerbeds to understanding landscapes, complete this marvelous argument for beauty-creating boldness." -The Hamilton Spectator