Penelope Hobhouse's Natural Planting

The 20th century has seen a significant development in an approach to gardening that can be described as "natural". This means capturing the essence of nature's intentions, and interpreting that by using plants appropriate to the environment, thus incidentally saving water and eliminating the need for fertilizers and pesticides. All over the world gardeners have found strong reasons for gardening in this new ecological way. In this book Penelope Hobhouse explores the origins of the movement and shows why, both for ecological reasons and for the benefit of plants, gardeners should consider this approach. It demonstrates, using examples of gardens round the world, how natural gardening works and how it can be adopted in one's own garden.

In the last century, and particularly in the last few decades, interest in regional gardening with native plants and hardy exotics has greatly increased. Busy gardeners love the unfussy, low-maintenance beauty it affords them, and many wonderful examples of natural planting now exist--Chicago's Botanical Gardens, Winterthur in Delaware, and hundreds of other beautiful public and private gardens. Penelope Hobhouse examines the history and botanical details of the natural tradition in a wide array of habitats and climatic zones in this serious book, which includes photographs of gardens all over the world by the fine garden photographer Jerry Harpur.