Barbara’s goal is to inspire you to garden organically to benefit our health, the soil, and water supply: “Grow a few plants for pollinators, provide some clean water, and plant a tree or shrub for wildlife to safely raise their young. Together, we can lessen the impacts of climate change and garden with nature to make a difference.”
A childhood in Demarest, New Jersey spent playing in the woodland brook next to her house cultivated a deep respect for nature and wildlife. After college and corporate positions, Barbara designed and installed backyard and roof gardens for residences, not-for-profits, public parks, and historic sites in New York City and the Hudson Valley.
As founder of Friends of Pier 84’s Manhattan Botanical Garden, she secured a grant to purchase plants, design, and install the West 44th Street Block Associations’ Pier 84 Community Garden for the Hudson River Park. An invited speaker at the Philadelphia Flower Show for five consecutive years, Barbara has lectured at Monticello, for the Ecological Landscape Alliance, gardening clubs and museums, and was featured on two episodes of HGTV’s Gardening By the Yard.
Barbara has been a member of the American Public Gardens Association, Manitoga/The Russel Wright Design Center’s Woodland Landscape Council, and earned certificates from the Quality Deer Management Association and National Wildlife Federation. Her herb farm, researched at the Chelsea Physic Garden, was on the Putnam County Secret Garden Tour.
She served as Hyde Park Historian, president of the F.W. Vanderbilt Garden Association, and was named a Harrison Fellow of the Historic Landscape Institute (Monticello/University of Virginia). She enjoys writing, gardening, and painting by the stream in the woods at her 1890 home.
BARBARA HOBENS 