Penelope Hobhouse

Penelope Hobhouse is a garden writer, garden designer, garden historian, lecturer and gardener. For fourteen years until 1993 with her husband, Professor John Malins, she was in charge of the National Trust Gardens at Tintinhull House in Somerset. Today she lives in Dorset and travels in Europe, Australia and the United States lecturing and designing gardens.

Penelope Hobhouse and Associates is a small design office in the west of England, with an associate Nan Sinton in Boston, USA.

Penelope Hobhouse was born in Northern Ireland in 1929 - Cambridge Honours Degree Economics 1951 MA

Her publications include: Colour in Your Garden, Plants in Garden History, Penelope Hobhouse on Gardening, Penelope Hobhouse’s Garden Designs, and Penelope Hobhouse’s Natural Planting.

In 1996 Penelope Hobhouse hosted The Art and Practice of Gardening (with Perennial Productions) for House and Garden Television
in the United States.

She has designed gardens in England, Scotland, France, Italy, Spain and Germany. They include a garden for Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, at Walmer Castle in Kent, ‘The Country Garden’ for the Royal Horticultural Society at Wisley, a renaissance-style garden in Italy and a garden for the fashion designer, Jil Sander, in Germany.

In the United States she has designed gardens in New York, Maine, Connecticut, New Jersey, California and Texas. They include a Herb Garden for the New York Botanical Garden.

She designed a Mediterranean-type Garden for the Philadelphia Flower Show in March 2001 where she also lectured.

Penelope Hobhouse is an Associate Editor of the magazine Gardens Illustrated and a member of the advisory panel of TheGardenLine.com.

Awards

In 1993 Penelope Hobhouse received an Award of Excellence for her book, Gardening Through the Ages from the Garden Writers Association of America.

In December 1996 she received the Royal Horticultural Society Victoria Medal of Honour, the highest award given by the RHS to British Horticulturists.

In November 1999 she received the Life Time Achievement Award from the Guild of Garden Writers.