Announcing the Gardenista 2014 Considered Design Awards

We’re thrilled to announce the second annual Gardenista Considered Design Awards, which give us the chance to honor our readers’ gardens and outdoor spaces. Read on to learn more about the contest–and the custom lamp from Jielde you stand to win.

Every day, we show you the gardens we love; now it’s your turn to share. Do you have a kitchen garden that’s in its summertime prime? An amazing deck you built yourself? A window box that’s the envy of the block? We want to know about it!

Our competition is open to all readers and all sorts of gardens and outdoor spaces, from tiny fire-escape plantings to spacious pool houses. We have separate categories for amateur and professional designers, and a covetable prize: Winners will receive a Jielde SI333 Signal Desk Lamp in bronze (shown above), in a color designed exclusively for us. And all the winning projects will be fully profiled on the site.

This year, we’re excited to have a panel of guest judges, including many garden design luminaries whose names will already be familiar to you. Stay tuned; we’ll announce the roster on Tuesday. 

Contest Categories:

Best Overall Garden (Amateur): The best overall outdoor garden designed by a non-professional.

Best Small Garden (Amateur): Indoor gardens, houseplants, window boxes, fire-escape gardens, container gardens, vertical gardens, and more.

Best Outdoor Living Space (Everyone): Outdoor sitting rooms and lounge spaces, outdoor kitchens, outdoor dining rooms, outdoor showers and baths, and more.

Best Edible Garden (Everyone): Kitchen gardens, vegetable patches, raised beds, outdoor herb gardens, etc.

Best Hardscape Project (Everyone): Stairways, decks and patios, driveways, paths, fences, swimming pools, garden gates, trellises, and more.

Best Professional Landscape (Professional): The best overall outdoor garden or landscape designed by a professional.

Best Garden Shed or Outbuilding (Professional): Garden sheds, storage sheds, barns, garages, carports, greenhouses, pool houses, backyard studios, outhouses, guest houses, and more. (Note: Though an outbuilding is typically detached from a main house, that’s not a requirement here.)

Interiors enthusiasts, there’s a competition for you, too: The Remodelista Considered Design Awards has 10 total categories this year, also open to amateur designers and professionals. Head to Remodelista for details. 

Important 2014 Dates:

Submission Deadline: Monday, July 7, by Midnight PDT
Finalists Announced and Reader Voting Begins: Wednesday, July 16
Reader Voting Ends: Friday, August 8 
Winners Announced: Saturday, August 9

How to Enter:

We’ve simplified the entry process. Write an overall design statement describing your project and submit up to six photos of the project, along with a separate caption for each photo. You may submit one project in each category for which you qualify. All projects will be published in the Gallery tab of the contest site within a few minutes of submitting. For each category, a guest judge will work with Gardenista editors to review all the entries and choose up to five finalists. After we announce our finalists, we will invite friends, family, and fellow Gardenista readers to cast their votes.  

See our contest Terms & Conditions and FAQ for more information. 

Enter the contest

Good luck!