Alison Hoblyn is a designer, illustrator, painter, and teacher whose love of flowers and plants stems from childhood. She is the author of Painting Flowers and Gardens and the novel The Scent of Water. She holds a Royal Horticultural Society certificate in Horticulture and has written on people and their gardens in such journals as The English Garden and the RHS's The Garden. An enthusiastic gardener and flower-arranger, Alison lives in Oxfordshire, England.