The American Garden Award: Make Your Voice Heard!

Posted in Programs and Events on December 26 2012, by Matt Newman

Beauty pageants sweep the spectrum from bad reality TV to the Westminster Dog Show. But here, as you might have guessed, swimsuit competitions and obstacle courses aren’t all that high on our totem of concerns. Instead, our brand of popularity contest skips the stage glitz and gets right down to the core themes of plant competition: hardiness, longevity, and the aesthetic of the perfect flower. Over the course of next year’s American Garden Award selections, we’ll be pinning down the plants that best display those traits. Better yet, we’ll be doing it with everyone’s help!

Each year, the AGA organizers reveal an exclusive selection of top-rate flower cultivars, all in the running to become the next “Best in Show.” But as judgment by jury goes, we’re not talking about ivory tower botanists and professional rosarians behind a gavel. Nope, this is strictly a public affair–you, me, and anyone willing to chip in their two cents can vote. And with trial beds spread throughout nearly 30 botanical institutions across the United States, including the NYBG, that gives almost everyone a chance to pitch in and choose the next Miss America of the plant world.

2012’s competition offered a tight race between six different species, counting among them rich petunias, blazing sunflowers, and a peppermint-painted gazania that ranked high on many lists. But it was a begonia by the name of ‘Santa Cruz Sunset’ that surged ahead to take the crown, thanks to its feathery red flowers and hanging basket elegance. With so many varied participants, this sort of contest might strike some as trying to compare apples to oranges, but the end results stand to show just how regional preference and the changing tides of plant fashion can influence the winning outcome.

“For 2013, there are four plants nominated for the award,” explains Kristin Schleiter, NYBG Director of Outdoor Gardens. “We will be planting them in one of the Home Gardening Center’s trial beds around the middle of May. And so far, we are the only garden in the New York area that will be showing them.”

We’ll have more on the plant candidates in the near future, as well as a voting and flowering schedule for those interested in participating. But keep in mind that even if you can’t pay the Garden a visit to see these flowers in person, it won’t stymie your option to vote–there will be a ballot available online, complete with pictures of the contestants.

Across the country, participants will be judging these leafy beauties and pulling the lever on which one they think deserves AGA recognition; the award is a sure means of boosting national recognition for the winning cultivars. So if you have it in you to make your voice heard, do the gardening scene a favor and vote when you have the chance! Come the 2013 growing season, your opinion could turn the tide of what’s popular in American backyards.