The Queen Mother's garden in Walmer Castle, designed by Hobhouse in 1997
Hobhouse walked through Tuscany and taught herself gardening by examples of the Tuscan villa gardens she saw; she went on to be a garden writer and designer, publishing many books on the subject. She started work at Hadspen House, Somerset until leaving in 1979.[3]
In 1980 she and her husband Prof John Malins moved into Tintinhull Gardens.[4] The garden's former designer Phyllis Reiss was said to have had a strong influence of Hobhouse.[5] Until 1993, she was in charge of Tintinhull House's gardens also in Somerset.[2]
In 1996 she hosted a television series for Home & Garden Television in the USA.[6] 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.[citation needed]
Hobhouse is "a fixture in the minds of gardeners who love rooms and bones – the paths and walls and satisfying verticals that form the skeleton of a garden."[7]
She is an associate editor of Gardens Illustrated magazine. She has taught at the University of Essex. She then lived in Bettiscombe, Dorset until 2008.[2] She moved in September 2008 back to Hadspen, where she started a new garden outside her quarters which are in the yard. Her new garden is a south facing and 17 m × 17 m (56 ft × 56 ft) enclosure at the back of some converted stables surrounded by mature box hedging.[citation needed]
Hobhouse married firstly, 17 May 1952 Paul Rodbard Hobhouse (d 1994), son of Sir Arthur Hobhouse (d 1965), of Castle Cary, Somerset; this marriage was dissolved in 1983, and she left the garden she had restored at the Hobhouse seat, Hadspen, Somerset. They had one daughter, Georgina Catherine, and two sons, Niall Alexander and David Paul. She moved to Tintinhull and met her second husband, John Melville Malins, at a Garden History Society meeting;[10] they married in 1983, he died in 1992.[2]
