GNPS Plant of the Year 2024 Nominations Open October 9 at 7 p.m.

The GNPS Plant of the Year (POY) program recognizes native plants that are of benefit to Georgia’s ecology and wildlife. If you are a GNPS member and have a favorite native plant that you think others would love, please consider nominating it for our POY 2024. 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.

Members can only nominate one plant, and only current GNPS members can submit nominations. Try logging into the GNPS website (upper right, “LOGIN / MEMBER PORTAL”) to confirm that your membership is valid before attempting to submit. After you log in, you can check your membership in the Membership “tile” of the member portal.  If your membership is not active, you can click on the renew or join options to renew your membership.

POY 2024 nominations will open at 7 p.m. sharp on October 9, 2023.  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.

Submissions are made through a form, and the link to that form will be emailed promptly at 7:00 p.m. on October 9, and it will also appear as a post on the Plant of the Year page. Each submission will be confirmed shortly after receipt, so if you don’t get an autoreply in a few minutes, please try again immediately. Members will be notified by email when submissions close.

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 Georgia ecology;
• Adaptable enough to grow in most gardens;
• NOT a previous GNPS Plant of the Year. Previous winners can be found on the on the table below, as well as on the GNPS Plant of the Year page.

Nominations will proceed until six acceptable nominees have been selected. As always, the first six submissions received will be given preference. However, the POY committee can pass over a plant if it is too similar to a previous submission (i.e., in the same genus, or having too similar an appearance and growth habit), or if it is only marginally eligible.

POY 2024 voting dates will be announced in October after the nominees are chosen.