2025 POY nominations open at 7:00 p.m. sharp on Monday, October 7, 2024.
The GNPS Plant of the Year (POY) program recognizes native plants that are of benefit to Georgia’s ecology and wildlife. If there’s a native plant that you love and think others will, too, please consider nominating it for our POY 2025. Members can only nominate one plant. Traits that make a good nominee are: ecological significance, benefits to wildlife, adaptability, beauty, and hardiness. Plants should be easy to grow and propagate, and their native habitat in Georgia should not be limited to only one or two counties.
A submission link will be emailed to members and posted on the GNPS website at 7:00 p.m. on October 7. Premature submissions will NOT be accepted.
Submissions must include both the common and Latin names for the nominee, as well as a reason why it would make a great GNPS POY. A sentence will suffice, but feel free to elaborate as much as you’d like. We welcome information, especially regarding ecological significance or benefits to wildlife. Photos are encouraged, but not required.
All acceptable nominees must be:
- Native to Georgia (you can type USDA after the plant name in a Google search to look up its native distribution)
- Underutilized in gardens and landscapes and/or vital to the GA ecology
- Adaptable enough to grow in most gardens
- NOT a previous GNPS Plant of the Year.
Additional information, including a list of previous Plants of the Year, will be sent when submissions open. You can also find them on the GNPS POY webpage.
