Penelope Hobhouse

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Penelope Hobhouse (born November 20, 1929 in Moyola Park, Castledawson , Northern Ireland ) is a garden author and gardener.

Life

Hobhouse was born Penelope Chichester-Clark, daughter of the Anglo-Irish James Lennox-Conyngham Chichester-Clark and attended school at North Foreland Lodge . She then studied business administration at Girton College in Cambridge and graduated in 1951 with an MA . On May 17, 1952, she married Paul Rodbard Hobhouse († 1994), the son of Sir Arthur Hobhouse († 1965). The marriage resulted in Georgina Dehra Catherine (born March 9, 1953), Niall Alexander (born August 29, 1954) and David Paul (born September 9, 1957). The marriage was annulled in 1983. In 1983 she married John Melville Malins, who died in 1992. She lived in Bettiscombe in Dorset before moving back to Hadspen in September 2008 , where she started a new garden.

In her youth, Hobhouse was not interested in gardens, knew little about wildflowers, and had no knowledge of botanicals. Her first garden was in the overgrown garden of a 17th century Somerset farmhouse where she lived with her husband Paul Hobhouse, inspired by a visit to Phyllis Reiss' garden at Tintinhull House in Somerset. Overall, she considers visits to other gardens to be the most important stimulus in designing your own gardens. Her friend John Raven , professor of classical philology at Cambridge, gave her a first reading list for garden design. She lists the gardens of John and Faith Raven in Docwra near Cambridge , along with Abbotsbury and Knightshayes Court in Devon by Sir John Heathcote Amory and his wife, among the gardens that influenced their early development. She bought many of her plants from Margery Fish's nursery in East Lambrook. She planted her garden with old varieties of climbing roses, irises ( Iris unguicularis ) and wig bushes and initially limited the flower colors to white and yellow.

In 1968 the family moved to the Hobhouses mansion at Hadspen House in Somerset. The 3.5 hectare garden was completely overgrown. During the Second World War it was used as a vegetable garden as part of the " Digging for Victory " campaign, after which two unskilled workers tried unsuccessfully to keep winches , beets and blackberries in check. With the help of a gardener and the copious use of plant poisons, Hobhouse began to transform the garden into an easy-care complex. She mainly used small trees and bushes under which she planted bulbs. She also used a few of the surviving garden plants, some of which came from the Fox-Strangway family's garden in Abbotsbury , Dorset . Shrubs were used to displace weeds. Lawn was replaced by low shrubs or perennials. The choice of plants was often determined by the preference for individual species. Overall, she tried to recreate the Edwardian garden plan. She received many plants from John Hussey, Abbotsbury's head gardener. Hobhouse also continued to run a vegetable garden. She also created a meadow in which tulips, common chess flowers , meadow cranesbills , fox orchids and bees' ragweed grew.

The remodeling of the garden was completed in 1974 and Hobhouse published a book about it. Working on the book forced her to acquire the basics of botanical nomenclature for the first time. She joined the British Society for Garden History and visited gardens abroad for the first time on their excursions in the 1970s. B. in Tuscany . After the publication of her book "Color in your Garden", Hobhouse began lecture series in the United States and thus became familiar with the local gardening traditions.

Among the authors who influenced her, she names Graham Stuart Thomas with his book on ancient rose varieties, Hillier's Handbook on Trees and Shrubs, Christopher Lloyd , John Raven and Gertrude Jekyll .

Until 1993 she and John Malins looked after the gardens of Tintinhull House in Somerset for the English National Trust . These were designed to be much more maintenance-intensive than in Hadspen and mainly used perennials and annual flowers. The garden is structured by hedges and follows a fixed color scheme with the classic English long borders. Hobhouse was also responsible for the design of the walled garden of Wormsley Park , the country estate of the Getty family near Stokenchurch in Buckinghamshire .

style

Hobhouse emphasizes that the garden should adapt to the landscape. In particular, the garden should merge inconspicuously into the surrounding landscape. However, this did not prevent them from planting aggressively invasive plants like Caucasian hogweed . She emphasizes that gardens should not be opened up at a glance, and so follows Lawrence Johnston's concept of garden spaces, but adapts them to the local soil and location. A garden is not just a collection of plants, it embodies the gardener's interpretation of their historical significance and is supported by his knowledge of their needs.

Overall, her success is likely due to the fact that she showed how a traditional English garden could be remodeled into a pseudo-farmhouse style with little money and maintenance, which nevertheless retained some of the pretensions of country house gardens.

Act

Hobhouse was Associate Editor of Gardens Illustrated and taught at the University of Essex . In 1996 she hosted the series "The Art and Practice of Gardening" (Perennial Productions) for "House and Garden Television" in the USA. She runs the company Penelope Hobhouse and Associates with a Nan Sinton branch in Boston , Massachusetts .

Works

Hobhouse designed gardens in England, Scotland, France, Italy, Spain, Germany and the USA including:

Publications

  • The Country Gardener. London, Francis Lincoln 1976 (reprint 1995)
  • The National Trust, A book of Gardening, Ideas, Methods, Designs - A practical guide. London, Pavilion / Michael Joseph 1986.
  • Garden style. London, Frances Lincoln 1988.
  • Plants in Garden History, London, Pavilion 1992 (Gardening through the Ages, New York 1992 ISBN 1-85145-545-0 )
  • Penelope Hobhouse on Gardening London, Frances Lincoln 1994. ISBN 0-7112-0816-6 (McMillans, New York)
  • A Gardeners Journal. London, Frances Lincoln 1997. ISBN 0-7112-1188-4 (Willow Creek, USA)
  • Penelope Hobhouse's Natural Planting . Henry Holt & Co, 1997. ISBN 978-0805044904 .
  • Penelope Hobhouse's Garden Designs . London, Frances Lincoln 2000.
  • Color in Your Garden , Frances Lincoln 2003.
  • Gardens of Persia. Kales Press (USA: Cassell Illustrated, 2006. ISBN 184403433X )

Awards

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Debrett's entry
  2. ↑ http://www.penelopehobhouse.com/
  3. ^ Penelope Hobhouse, Garden Style. London, Frances Lincoln 1988, 15
  4. ^ Penelope Hobhouse, Garden Style. London, Frances Lincoln 1988, 15
  5. ^ Penelope Hobhouse, Garden Style. London, Frances Lincoln 1988, 18
  6. ^ Penelope Hobhouse, Garden Style. London, Frances Lincoln 1988, 18
  7. ^ Penelope Hobhouse, Garden Style. London, Frances Lincoln 1988, 19
  8. ^ Penelope Hobhouse, Garden Style. London, Frances Lincoln 1988, 21
  9. ^ Penelope Hobhouse, Garden Style. London, Frances Lincoln 1988, 22
  10. ^ Penelope Hobhouse, Garden Style. London, Frances Lincoln 1988, 21
  11. ^ Penelope Hobhouse, The Country Gardener, London, Frances Lincoln, New Edition 1988, 6
  12. ^ Penelope Hobhouse, The Country Gardener. London, Frances Lincoln 1989, 20 (2nd edition)
  13. ^ Penelope Hobhouse, The Country Gardener, London, Frances Lincoln, New Edition 1988, 6
  14. ^ Penelope Hobhouse, The Country Gardener. London, Frances Lincoln 1989, 20 (2nd edition)
  15. ^ Penelope Hobhouse, Garden Style. London, Frances Lincoln 1988, 23
  16. ^ Penelope Hobhouse, The Country Gardener. London, Frances Lincoln 1989, 21 (2nd edition)
  17. ^ Penelope Hobhouse, The Country Gardener. London, Frances Lincoln 1988, 15
  18. ^ Penelope Hobhouse, The Country Gardener. London, Frances Lincoln 1988, 31
  19. ^ Penelope Hobhouse, Garden Style. London, Frances Lincoln 1988, 31
  20. ^ Penelope Hobhouse, Garden Style. London, Frances Lincoln 1988, 31
  21. ^ Penelope Hobhouse, Garden Style. London, Frances Lincoln 1988, 20
  22. ^ Hillier, Manual of trees and shrubs, David & Charles
  23. ^ Penelope Hobhouse, The Country Gardener, London, Frances Lincoln, Reissue 1988, 11
  24. ^ Penelope Hobhouse, The Country Gardener, London, Frances Lincoln, New Edition 1988, 6
  25. ^ Penelope Hobhouse, The Country Gardener, London, Frances Lincoln, New Edition 1988, 6
  26. ^ Garsington Opera : Walled Garden , accessed August 3, 2016.
  27. ^ Penelope Hobhouse, The Country Gardener, London, Frances Lincoln, Reissue 1988, 7
  28. ^ Penelope Hobhouse, The Country Gardener, London, Frances Lincoln, Reissue 1988, 44
  29. ^ Penelope Hobhouse, The Country Gardener, London, Frances Lincoln, Reissue 1988, 16
  30. ^ Penelope Hobhouse, The Country Gardener, London, Frances Lincoln, New Edition 1988, 17
  31. ↑ http://www.penelopehobhouse.com/
  32. ↑ http://www.penelopehobhouse.com/
  33. ↑ Pictures at http://www.michaeljeans.com/tikorangi/h69F9311#h69f9311
  34. ↑ Steve Jobs' gardener describes mutual appreciation . In: SF Gate . Retrieved February 21, 2012. 

Web links
personal data
SURNAME Hobhouse, Penelope
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Chichester-Clark, Penelope (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British garden author and horticulturist
DATE OF BIRTH November 20, 1929
PLACE OF BIRTH Moyola Park, Castledawson , Northern Ireland