2025 Reader Garden Award Winners Have Been Selected!
Every year, our annual Reader Garden Award celebrates the creativity, passion and vision of garden enthusiasts who have transformed their outdoor spaces into inspiring, functional and beautiful environments. Readers from across North America submit spectacular spaces that feature thoughtful layouts, inspired plant selections and plenty of personality.
These incredible gardens make our job of judging increasingly challenging, but all votes have been tabulated, and we're excited to begin announcing our 2025 runners-up in the coming months, culminating with the winning gardener in December 2025. Thanks again to Jung Seed for sponsoring the 2025 award and providing prizes for our winners. Follow along as we reveal each inspiring garden and gardener!
Stay Tuned...
- We will announce our 2025 Reader Garden Award Grand Prize Winner in the December issue of Garden Gate magazine!
Meet our 2025 Runners-Up!
2025 Reader Garden Runner-Up: Lonna Engel from Williamsport, PA
Explore Lonna's shady garden haven, appropriately named Painted Leaf Hosta Garden, home to her collection of more than 900 hosta cultivars, including specimens as small as a dime to those as large as 7 feet across and in almost every color and variation imaginable! Read more about the garden here.
2025 Reader Garden Runner-Up: Becky Short from Macungie, PA
For Becky, the joy of gardening has been in the journey. Meaningful memories can be found throughout her yard, from the knot garden inspired by a vacation in England to a replica of the historic Tayloe House in Colonial Williamsburg. Pieces of inspiration get stitched together throughout the space to create something cohesive yet completely unique. Read more about Becky's garden here.
Now Accepting Submissions for the 2026 Reader Garden Award!
Enter your own garden for a chance to be photographed and featured in a future issue of Garden Gate magazine. Find full entry guidelines here: 2026 Garden Gate Reader Garden Award.
How To Enter:
Submit via Email (preferred method of entry):
Email your information and a link to your images in cloud storage (Dropbox, Google Drive, Amazon Cloud Drive, etc.) to ReaderGarden@aimmedia.com
Submit via mail:
Reader Garden Award
Garden Gate Magazine
2143 Grand Avenue,
Des Moines, IA 50312
Enter your garden by January 6th, 2026. Open to U.S. and Canadian residents.
Check Out Our Previous Winners
See the designs that have won in the past, and find ideas to inspire your future creations:
