Shocking Beauty

Shocking Beauty" goes beyond gardening and straight to inspirational. The unusual pairing of plants and color combinations give you the courage to think out of the box. Thomas Hobbs has a vision that can be a little intimidating at first but that quickly passes when you realize you can re-create this beauty if you keep your mind open and away from the home improvement store's plant shop. Quality gardens like these require quality plants that are rarely found outside of the small nurseries and catalogs. Don't skimp if you want anything that resembles what you'll find between these pages. Both "Shocking Beauty" and Hobbs' "The Jewel Box Garden" are essential for any gardener.

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.

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!

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!

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!