Defiant Gardens

Friday, February 18th
by Editor, Soiled and Seeded

Defiant Gardens

Defiant Gardens: Making Gardens in Wartime, written by University of Architecture Professor Kenneth I. Helphand.

An introductory excerpt:
Gardens traverse the terrain from subsistence to the highest forms of artistry. As a landscape architect I am fascinated by the range of garden types and possibilities, and by the variety of human creativity expressed in gardens, especially when they have been created under conditions of adversity. The journey that set my feet on the path to write this book began with my encountering a single image: a photograph of French soldiers in World War I standing in front of a small vegetable garden adjacent to their dugout quarters. This evocative picture haunted me for years. Why did these soldiers make this garden? What did it mean to them? What kind of satisfaction did they derive from creating, and tending, and harvesting it? Consideration of these questions became the germ of the idea of defiant gardens.

There is an entire online platform related to the theme here.