Events & Entertainment, Nature & Wildlife | Posted on April 6th, 2022 | return to news
Rare plant competition invites entrants
An annual search for rare plants is underway, and the winner will be announced at the RHS Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival this summer.
The search is on for rare and unusual plants that aren’t commercially available and anyone can take part.
The annual Threatened Plant of the Year 2022 competition run by horticultural conservation charity Plant Heritage is calling for garden enthusiasts and flower fanatics across the country to enter any rare and unusual plants or flowers that aren’t commercially available.
Anyone can take part (you don’t need to be a Plant Heritage member or National Plant Collection® Holder) but all plants entered must be a named cultivar that have been grown or sold in the UK or Ireland before 2012.
The competition runs until 16 May, after which a shortlist will be selected by an expert panel from Plant Heritage.
Shortlisted plants will be displayed for visitors to the prestigious RHS Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival’s Floral Marquee in July.
The overall winner will be crowned and will receive an engraved Threatened Plant of the Year 2022 vase, a winner’s certificate and a special plant label.
To find out more, and to enter your rare plant, visit: www.plantheritage.org.uk/conservation/threatened-plant-of-the-year-competition-2022/
The 2021 overall winner was Peter Westbrook’s beautiful bloom Camellia × williamsii ‘Yesterday’, currently only found in National Plant Collections and a handful of other locations across the UK. The winner of the Public Vote, as chosen by visitors to Plant Heritage’s website, was Aspidistra ‘Irish Mist’, grown by Philip Oostenbrink in Kent.
“We launched this competition three years ago, and every year we see a stunning array of plants each with their own interesting history,” said Vicki Cooke, conservation manager at Plant Heritage. “Last year our winning plant had been growing in an Edinburgh garden for 35 years, but its owner hadn’t realised it was no longer commercially available. He thought the name may have been lost, until he found the original plant label from 1985 in a chocolate tin in his shed. Not every plant needs a remarkable story to win, but this story serves as a reminder that what you have in your garden may be perfect for our competition.”
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