Jewel Box Garden [Hardcover]

Thomas Hobbs (Author), David McDonald (Photographer)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 2004

Wouldn't it be wonderful if you could describe your garden as a jewel box full of beautiful plant treasures? In this sequel to the bestselling Shocking Beauty, garden impresario Thomas Hobbs shows you how. The Jewel Box Garden is a luscious, full-color book that features 160 new and startling photos by renowned garden photographer David McDonald. Hobbs explains his philosophy of gardening and life, or as he puts it, "Life As We Dream It Could Be." In his own provocative and highly original way, he encourages gardeners to tap into their creativity and invest their heart and soul in creating oases of beauty-intimate spaces where they can escape the pressures of modern life.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Hobbs, Southlands Nursery owner and plantsman extraordinaire, reigns over Vancouver's horticultural scene and exerts an indubitable presence throughout the Pacific Northwest and points beyond. His passion for daringly vibrant plant pairings blazed brightly in his first book, Shocking Beauty (1999). Now, in a brilliantly produced and gorgeously illustrated new tome, Hobbs holds forth on myriad ideas about garden design. From ornamentation and hardscaping to maximizing small spaces and issues of scale, Hobbs integrates practical observations and advice into an inspirational nexus, laying claim, in effect, to the role of a piper, calling upon gardeners to follow their dreams and tap into creative urges. Along with a message to dream big, green thumbs are encouraged to key in to their beloved plants to glean cultivation requirements; develop a discerning eye; learn about color; and revere any and all elements that form a unique statement of one's personal aesthetic. Vignettes showing Hobbs' spectacular house and its surrounding landscape exemplify a resonant philosophy that transcends gardening to encompass a talent for living life to its fullest. Alice Joyce
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

The shots of blushing leaves and dewy tendrils are as sensually over-the-top as the prose urging intimate involvement... -- Peter Goddard, Helping Inspiration Take Root, Glimpses of Eden in Gardening Books, Toronto Star, 5-22-2004

— it gets my vote for the most beautiful garden book of the year — -- Valerie Easton, Pacific Northwest Magazine

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 176 pages
• Publisher: Timber Press (April 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0881926469
• ISBN-13: 978-0881926460
• Product Dimensions: 10.3 x 10.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,282,222 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

46 of 51 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars For avant-gardist gardening snobs, January 14, 2006

By 

David W. Pittelli (Adams MA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Jewel Box Garden (Hardcover)

Thomas Hobbs is, at least in the persona he presents in this book, an avant-gardist gardening snob. He sees gardening as a fashion-driven art, where trendy plants are to be discarded as soon as they become too popular with the petit bourgeoisie, for whom his contempt is made clear on almost every page of text. Some of this stuff can't be spoofed, because it's impossible to be more catty than Hobbs here (block quotes preceded by ** and italics presented as ALL CAPS):

** Some gardeners will never learn the art of plant assemblage... As I drive by their predictable efforts, I often wonder, "Is Life Easier?"

** Being a left-handed, Gemini breach-birth ALLOWS me to love tetraploid daylilies. It is WHO I AM BOTANICALLY.

** Bowling balls are appropriate in Marcia Donahue's garden/gallery in Berkeley, California, because SHE DID IT FIRST.

Hobbs is obsessed with rejection of the common and the cliched, but most of his featured gardens also look alike, in part because they're almost all small shaded urban gardens in the coastal Northwest, but more notably because they eschew flowers in favor of foliage plants - mostly bright or spiky - with color from kitschy cast-offs and outré sculpture, including flesh-colored ceramic penises.

In my (hardly original) opinion, a big problem with most people's enjoyment of the arts today is that the field has already done what is pretty or handsome, and since its current practitioners are jaded by their predecessors' work and aspire to being original, they must often produce what most nonspecialists consider ugly. This is notably a problem with architecture and oil painting (and classical music) by about World War I, and haute couture since the Kennedy Administration. So far horticulture has largely escaped the curse of avant-gardist ugliness, but not in this book. I wondered whether it was fair to Hobbs to say he has passed a step beyond "Shocking Beauty" to where much of this book is ugly, but then I came to his penultimate page of prose:

** I have noticed a switch in gardening, from "pretty" to what I call "the New Ugly." I find this fascinating and very, very attractive. In gardening, UGLY HAS BEEN REDEFINED by brilliant plantsmen and -women who get absolutely no thrill from trying to make a pretty picture. By increasing the dosage of all that is weird and unexpected, these thrillseekers are creating powerful, unforgettable experiences.

Umh, NO IT HASN'T! If we wanted "powerful, unforgettable experiences" of ugliness, we would just move into a junkyard next to an oil refinery! That said, if the book's title or dust-jacket reflected this decadent philosophy, I could rate it 4 stars [...]

Perhaps oddly, Hobbs' Vancouver garden is larger, far more colorful and floriferous, and far more beautiful, than the preceding gardens. Hobbs doesn't fail to add a campy dramatic element, however, to his discovery of the Vancouver house:

** I will never forget ringing the doorbell, expecting "Max," [from Sunset Boulevard] or at least Harvey Korman dressed as "Max," to open the door. Instead, a very short Alfred Hitchcock type greeted us, with a badly-wigged woman peering over his shoulder.

As you might have guessed, the text of this book is more about Hobbs' persona than about gardening. But it isn't until the very last page of prose that we learn exactly how, for Hobbs, the garden is therapy - about talking to plants, which most people can't do ("and it shows"!) - and about remembering gardeners who gave him plants and then died of AIDS. Life is a veil of tears, so maybe we should cut him some slack, even if we are not in love with ugliness.

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Buy this book, May 17, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Jewel Box Garden (Hardcover)

Thomas Hobbs, who also wrote "Shocking Beauty, has written another exquisite book. In "Jewelbox", he elaborates more on his philosophy about gardening (actually, life). This book carries the thread of Shocking Beauty, but is in no way redundant. There are wonderful close-ups and elegant garden vignettes, as well as humorous and "shocking" images (from the gardens of people who are most likely his friends). Mr. Hobbs is gifted, articulate and knowledgeable about plants, and he is an extraordinary editor. The gardens in this book run the stylistic gamut, but each has something wonderful to say about personal style and about having the guts and the eye to make a garden so undeniably individual.
I can't imagine not loving this book.

21 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Absolute Perfection, March 5, 2005

By 

Carolyn Rampone "Carolyn D'Amico Rampone" (Plantation, FL USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Jewel Box Garden (Hardcover)

A more appropriate name doesn't exist. Imagine opening a beautifully crafted jewelry box to find the most sparkling baubles and brightly colored gems. David McDonald's photographs create this effect with the most exquisite flowers and plants imaginable. Nature's beauty surpasses the traditional sparkling trinkets one might expect to find and Thomas Hobbs describes them in the manner they deserve. I found this book to be a work of art, a gallery of paintings that happened to be growing from the earth. A must have for every gardener, artist, or anyone who appreciates beauty.