A journey through the most unlikely of gardens: the oases of peace people create in the midst of war. In this millennium, we have become war weary. From Afghanistan to Iraq, from Ukraine to South Sudan and Syria, from Kashmir to the West Bank, conflict is as contagious and poisonous as Japanese knotweed. Living through it are people just like us with ordinary jobs, ordinary pressures and ordinary lives. Against a new landscape of horror and violence it is up to them to maintain a modicum of normality and colour. For some, gardening is the way to achieve this. Working in the world's most dangerous war zones, freelance war correspondent and photographer Lally Snow has often chanced across a very moving sight, a testimony to the triumph of the human spirit in adversity, a celebration of hope and beauty: a war garden. In Kabul, the royal gardens are tended by a centenarian gardener, though the king is long gone; in Camp Bastion, bored soldiers improvise tiny gardens to give themselves a moment's peace; on both sides of the dividing line in Jerusalem families tend groves of olives and raise beautiful plants from the unforgiving, disputed landscape; in Ukraine, families tend their gardens in the middle of a surreal, frozen war. War Gardens is a surprising, tragic and beautiful journey through the darkest places of the modern world, revealing the ways people make time and space for themselves and for nature even in the middle of destruction.

This War is a Food War...' In 1941 Lord Woolton, Minister for Food, was determined that the Garden Front would save England: 'Dig for Victory' was the slogan, digging for dinner the reality. With food imports dwindling the number of allotments grew, millions opted to 'Spend an Hour with a Hoe' instead of an hour in a queue, and the upper classes turned lawns, tennis courts and stately gardens over to agriculture. The national diet was transformed, with swedes grown in the place of oranges and hapless children sucking on carrot lollies; evacuees grew their own meals and bomb sites sprouted allotments. Vegetables ruled the airwaves with Mr Middleton's 'In Your Garden' whilst Home Guard potatoes became the favourites of the Kitchen Front. This is a fully illustrated look at the time when gardening saved Britain.

A history of wartime gardens documents how they humanize landscapes and experience, even under the direst conditions

This 1919 book describes both the success of the war garden in helping to reduce food shortages during the World War I period and the necessity for maintaining these gardens during peacetime.

Sometimes, to move forward, we must look back. Gardening activity during American involvement in World War I (1917-1919) is vital to understanding current work in agriculture and food systems. The origins of the American Victory Gardens of World War II lie in the Liberty Garden program during World War I. This book examines the National War Garden Commission, the United States School Garden Army, and the Woman's Land Army (which some women used to press for suffrage). The urgency of wartime mobilization enabled proponents to promote food production as a vital national security issue. The connection between the nation's food readiness and national security resonated within the U.S., struggling to unite urban and rural interests, grappling with the challenges presented by millions of immigrants, and considering the country's global role. The same message--that food production is vital to national security--can resonate today. These World War I programs resulted in a national gardening ethos that transformed the American food system.

As the first botanical history of World War II, Plants Go to War examines military history from the perspective of plant science. From victory gardens to drugs, timber, rubber, and fibers, plants supplied materials with key roles in victory. Vegetables provided the wartime diet both in North America and Europe, where vitamin-rich carrots, cabbages, and potatoes nourished millions. Chicle and cacao provided the chewing gum and chocolate bars in military rations. In England and Germany, herbs replaced pharmaceutical drugs; feverbark was in demand to treat malaria, and penicillin culture used a growth medium made from corn. Rubber was needed for gas masks and barrage balloons, while cotton and hemp provided clothing, canvas, and rope. Timber was used to manufacture Mosquito bombers, and wood gasification and coal replaced petroleum in European vehicles. Lebensraum, the Nazi desire for agricultural land, drove Germans eastward; troops weaponized conifers with shell bursts that caused splintering. Ironically, the Nazis condemned non-native plants, but adopted useful Asian soybeans and Mediterranean herbs. Jungle warfare and camouflage required botanical knowledge, and survival manuals detailed edible plants on Pacific islands. Botanical gardens relocated valuable specimens to safe areas, and while remote locations provided opportunities for field botany, Trees surviving in Hiroshima and Nagasaki live as a symbol of rebirth after vast destruction.