New Statesman
Books of the Year 2006

Kenneth Helphand’s Defiant Gardens (Trinity University Press) is an incredible and deeply moving history of the ways in which soldiers and civilians, often in the most grievous and immiserated circumstances, have created little pockets of horticultural hope throughout the 20th century: in allied trenches during the First World War, Warsaw ghettoes, Japanese-American internment camps. The photographs alone are extraordinary, but the chronicles of imaginative resistance are almost beyond belief. Sukhdev Sandhu

One of the ten best books by Northwest authors. The Oregonian 2006

Foundation for Landscape Studies. The John Brinkerhoff Jackson Book Prize
Awarded to a book that has made a significant contribution to the study and understanding of garden
history and landscape studies. The J. B. Jackson prize, named in honor of one of the founding figures of American landscape studies, honors a distinguished book in the English language that was published between 2003 and 2006.

American Society of Landscape Architects Award of Excellence in Research

“This research is unprecedented and–unfortunately–timely, as war is so prevalent now. It really gets to the core of what gardens are about and recognizes the primal need to grow food and beauty. It’s incredibly moving to see signs of hope and life from past wars, much more touching than a memorial. Its ability to take this topic to a broader general marked is phenomenal. This proves that research doesn’t need to be boring and drab.”
- 2007 Professional Awards Jury Comments

2007 EDRA (Environmental Design Research Association )/Places Awards • Place Research

Helphand, a Professor of Landscape Architecture at the University of Oregon, notes that defiant gardens accentuate the essential questions of garden meaning and the relationship between humans and the natural world. Gardens are always defined by their context, he writes; perhaps the more difficult the context, the more accentuated their meaning becomes. In war — the antithesis of the beautiful — he further speculates that the common garden may become the highest form of art. Such gardens promise beauty where there is none, hope over despair, optimism over pessimism, and finally life in the face of death. In trenches, ghettoes and camps, defiant gardens have attempted to create normalcy in the midst of madness, and order out of chaos.

See the full article here: 2007 EDRA Review. And the announcement of the award here: 2007 EDRA Place Research Award

American Horticultural Society (AHS) (2007 Book Award)

The AHS Book Award Committee evaluated more than 40 nominations for the 2007 award before selecting this book as one of the most noteworthy American gardening books published in 2006. To make this choice, the committee of horticultural and writing experts from around the country considered qualities such as authority; clarity or originality of writing; potential for lasting usefulness and appeal; and quality of illustration and production.

Council on Botanical & Horticultural Libraries (CBHL) Annual Literature Award 2007

Kenneth Helphand’s Defiant Gardens was the winner in CBHL’s general interest category. “Helphand, a landscape architect and historian, reconstructs vanished wartime gardens (in World War I trenches, ghettos in Nazi-controlled Europe, prisoner-of-war camps, and Japanese American internment camps) through first-person accounts, testimonies, interviews with survivors, published memoirs, and photographs unearthed in little-known archives.” He examines “how life, home, work, hope, and beauty were experienced in the creation of all of these gardens.” (Patricia Jonas, Director of Library Services, Brooklyn Botanic Garden).

Garden Writers Association Media Awards Program-Gold Award of Achievement 2007

ForeWord Magazine Silver Book of the Year in history 2007

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