2024 Plant of the Year Awards

Dateline: November 12, 2024, New York City, New York 

The Plant of the Year Award was announced last night to a first-time winner, Bleeding Heart.  The selection shocked the announced audience of 47 gardeners and 396 plants, who were expecting a summer bloomer to win the award.  This was the second annual Plant of the Year Award celebration, and the energy from the crowd here at Radio City Music Hall was electric.  The creator and producer of the event, Ken Solow, declared the evening a smashing success. Solow, author of The Painful Education of a Type A Gardener, as well as the sole judge for the contest, estimated that the total audience for last night’s event was similar to other events routinely hosted by Radio City, including the Tony Awards, Grammy Awards, and MTV Video Music Awards. Notably, lines to enter the venue spilled out onto Sixth Avenue. The resulting traffic jam caused by excited cultivars was, in the words of an event spokesman, “unfortunate.”  Also “unfortunate” was the demonstration just a block away, where a variety of weeds clamored to be let into the famous concert hall while a counter demonstration of flowering perennials was chanting, “pull them out, pull them out, pull them out.”  The confrontation between weeds and flowering plants escalated until police arrived at the scene. According to video posted on social media, police were armed with weed control sprays supplied by Ortho, Spectracide, Roundup, and Vigoro, but unfortunately, all of the weeds survived. 

The Plant of the Year award show is rapidly becoming one of the highest rated awards shows on the planet, according to Solow, and the number of celebrities in attendance was unprecedented.  The two-hour show, hosted by Billy Crystal, featured live performances by Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Garth Brooks, and Miley Cyrus. However, the crowd reserved their biggest cheers for two plant-based singing groups, one comprised of spring-blooming perennials, and the other fall-blooming perennials.  The Spring Bloomers (famous for their creative name) sang their hit song, “You are So Cold in April.”  The fall-blooming quintet sang their version of the Bill Withers tune, “Ain’t No Sunshine [When You’re Gone].”  Both performances stopped the show with standing ovations. The long-awaited performance by the Rockettes, Radio City’s world-famous dancers, was delayed when swarms of bees, described by Solow as “pollinators,” were confused by the number of bee balm, lavender, coneflower, and aster plants in the audience. The bees were so overcome, they tried to extract nectar from the dancers. The chaos that ensued resulted in a 15-minute delay, somewhere between the award for “Best New Bed” and Miley Cyrus’s performance of her song, “Flowers.”   

There was a new format for the show this year. The advisory board recently added several categories of new awards to the program, including Best Spring-Blooming Plant, Best Summer-Blooming Plant, Best Fall-Blooming Plant, Best Bed, and Best New Bed. Critics say the new categories are not necessary and are the result of a lawsuit from spring-blooming plants. The suit claimed that spring plants were unfairly overlooked for awards because they often disappeared from the garden by awards season.  Spring plants had no comment on the lawsuit other than to say they were under a gag order from the judge.  Awards last year included the What Are You Still Doing Here?, Back from the Dead, It Was Good to Know Ya, and Most Replacements.  Non-plant awards included Best Fertilizer, Best Pesticide, and Best Weed-Pulling Tool.  And of course, the evening was crowned by the winner of Plant of the Year.  Winners include: 

Best Spring Bloomer AND Plant of the Year:  Bleeding Heart 

Benefited from class action lawsuit brought by spring-blooming plants earlier this year. Photo by: Me.  April 20, 2024. 

Runner Up:  Lenten Rose (Hellebore) 

Photo by: Me.  March 31, 2024. 

Best Summer Bloomer: Millennium Allium 

Consistent summer performer.  Photo by Me:  July 29, 2024. 

Runner Up:  Day Lilies

Continuously bloom from mid-June through early autumn.  Photo by Me.  June 18, 2024. 

Best Fall Bloomer: Hot Lips Turtlehead

Last year’s Plant of the Year award winner.   Photo By: Me.  September 24, 2024. 

Runner Up: Windflower (Anemone) 

Very close to winning this year.  Photo by: Me.  September 11, 2024. 

Best New Bed: (Used to Be) Empty Bed 

Tough call.  That the bed is mostly transplants earned them the award.  Photo by: Me.  August 10, 2024. 

Runner Up: Arborvitae side of Steps Bed 

Probably would have won if the plants didn’t cost so much.  Two of the pulmonaria have been lost to powdery mildew.  Photo by: Me.  August 11, 2024. 

Best Bed:  Back Bed 

Great flowers all year long. Photo by: Me.  July 15, 2024. 

Runner Up: Sun Bed 

Would have won the whole shebang if annuals counted.  But they don’t. Photo by: Me.  August 26, 2024. 

Best New Plant: Adagio Maiden Grass 

Gorgeous grass that does great on a windy day.  Photo by: Me.  August 21, 2024. 

Runner Up: Lambs Ear (Stachys) 

Beautiful soft, textured leaves. Photo by: Me. November 12, 2024. 

The organizers of the event formally thanked the plants for making the evening happen and gave Solow a special gift of five bags of mulch to dress up the (used to be) ostrich fern bed next spring.  Crystal brought Solow to the stage at the end of the evening to take a bow and wish the contestants best of luck next year.  Many observers said it was the best awards show of the season.  

I hope you enjoyed this year’s Plant of the Year Awards.  If you enjoy this content, feel free to share it with friends and enemies by clicking on the SHARE button in the text. You can also send a link to the newsletter at kensolow.substack.com.  If you are yearning for even more free gardening content from The Painful Education of a Type A Gardener, you can find it in the archives by clicking on the small image of me at the top of this post.  Thanks, as always, for your comments and likes.  It’s great to get your feedback.