Penelope Hobhouse is a garden designer, garden historian, gardener and writer, active in UK and abroad in the 20th and 21st century. She is an associate editor of Gardens Illustrated and a member of the advisory panel of TheGardenLine.com.
Born in Northern Ireland in 1929, Penelope Hobhouse received her MA honours degree in economics from Cambridge University in 1951. From 1979 to 1993 she, together with her husband Professor John Malins, was in charge of the National Trust Gardens at Tintinhull House in Somerset, England. In 1996 Hobhouse received the Victoria Medal of Honour from the Royal Horticultural Society. In 1999 she received the Life Time Achievement Award from the Guild of Garden Writers.
Hobhouse's publications include: Colour in Your Garden (1985), Plants in Garden History (1992), Gardening through the Ages (1993), Penelope Hobhouse on Gardening (1994), Penelope Hobhouse's Garden Designs (1997) and Penelope Hobhouse's Natural Planting (1997). She has designed gardens in England, Scotland, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United States.
Today Hobhouse lives in Dorset with a small design office, Penelope Hobhouse and Associates, based in the west of England, and an associate Nan Sinton in Boston, MA, USA.
Bibliography
'Biography', Penelope Hobhouse, http://www.penelopehobhouse.com/ [accessed 21 September 2008]