Download community beautification awards nomination packet

Help us find and celebrate great home gardens!  

Since 1971, The Garden Club of Kent has been conferring Community Beautification Awards annually to recognize great home gardens. The program honors good stewardship of the land and recognizes aesthetics, creativity and maintenance as well as sound environmental practices. 

Preference is given to gardens located in Kent, but consideration will be given to gardens in adjacent towns if a winner is not selected in Kent. 

Professionally designed gardens are acceptable, but the gardens must be maintained by the owners.

Read about our 2025 winners at https://gardenclubofkent.org/25-beautification-awards

Community Beautification Awards are granted in the following categories. Not all categories will necessarily be represented in any give award year. 

Nominated gardens must be residential: 

• Front Yard Garden

• Side Yard Garden

• Backyard Garden

• Small Space Garden

• Container Garden

• Woodland & Deep Shade Garden

• Home Vegetable Garden

• Native Plants/Wildlife Habitat Garden

• Youth Garden* 

• Best Overall Garden**

*Eligible for Youth Garden are children ages 5-17 who maintain a garden with minimal assistance; youth organizations maintaining gardens; and K-12 school gardens.

**We confer an award for Best Overall Garden, but this is not a nomination category. Best Overall is selected by our judges from among the nominations in all categories. 

Nominations for 2026 are open May 15-Aug. 15

You can download a complete entry packet in the link above, or request the submission packet from BackyardPest@gmail.com. Instructions for submitting in your nomination will be included in the packet.

Accompanying your nomination must be at least three (3) photographs of the garden you are nominating, preferably at its peak. 

Our judges prefer to see gardens at their peak to make the most accurate evaluation, so if the nominated garden is peaking in mid-June, then the nomination should be made in time for that to happen. 

Neither nominees nor nominators are are required to be members of The Garden Club of Kent. You can nominate your own garden or a fellow gardener — or both! Only two nominations per person are accepted, and please note that you can only nominate your own garden once, in one category. 

If you know of a great garden but don't want to make the nomination yourself, let the Community Beautification Awards committee know and we'll take it from there. We make it our business to scour the town looking for interesting gardens. You can contact the committee by sending an email to BackyardPest@gmail.com.