Most books on Victorian gardening include references to James Shirley Hibberd (1825-1890). He was a journalist who had a real influence on horticultural writing. He was an expert practical gardener, as well as an accomplished lecturer and after-dinner speaker. He was essentially a suburban gardener and wrote from personal experience, carrying out vast trials of plants, and 'consumer testing' varieties of flowers, fruit and vegetables, and introducing innovative and sometimes eccentric horticultural methods. This series of Giclee prints portray stunningly attractive tropical leaves from around the world, and were selected, in the words of Hibberd "with an eye to intrinsic beauty, from amongst the thousands of beautiful leaved plants with which the earth is adorned".
