All-America Selections (AAS) is pleased to announce the winners of their 2023 Landscape Design Challenge. This year’s theme of “A Whimsical Garden” was, in the beginning, one that created some cautious interest and more than one online search to see what could be done with such an unusual theme.

But the AAS Display Gardens came through again in a big way.

The AAS Display Gardens were tasked with using their AAS winning flowers and plants in and around the theme. Each garden staff member came up with a wide variety of ways to showcase their own garden’s whimsy in and among their AAS Winners.

For the challenge, AAS provided the gardeners with recent AAS Winner seeds and plants along with variety markers that, for the first time, included a QR code that sent users to the AAS webpage to learn more about that variety.

The gardens could also incorporate older AAS Winners into their designs to illustrate the theme. Gardeners were encouraged to generate publicity and hold events to share the story of AAS and its winners.

AAS recognizes and thanks the contest judges who are industry experts in the field of horticulture and landscaping:
 

• Helen Battersby, garden writer/speaker and GardenComm director, international region
• Ron Cramer, retired, Sakata Ornamentals and AAS former president
• Barbara Wise, sales and marketing manager, Crescent Garden

AAS is proud to announce the following winning gardens from the 2023 Design Challenge:

CATEGORY I: UNDER 10,000 VISITORS PER YEAR

FIRST PLACE WINNER
Mississippi State University, South Mississippi Branch Experiment Station, Poplarville, Miss.

SECOND PLACE WINNER (A THREE-WAY TIE)
Montpelier Kids Garden, Montpelier, Ohio Weston Garden Center, Weston, Mo. Lee College Horticulture Program, Huntsville, Texas

THIRD PLACE WINNER
Master Gardener Association of Tippecanoe County Display Garden, Lafayette, Ind.

HONORABLE MENTION WINNERS
William Dam Seeds, Dundas, Ont. Cornell Cooperative Extension Oneida County, Parker F. Scripture Botanical Gardens, Oriskany, N.Y. Cutler Botanic Garden, Binghamton, N.Y. Pima County Master Gardener Demonstration Garden, Tucson, Ariz. Virginia Western Community College, Community Arboretum, Roanoke, Va. Hendricks County Master Gardeners Demonstration Garden, Avon, Ind. Harmony Demonstration Garden, Porterfield, Wis. West Coast Seeds, Delta, B.C.

CATEGORY II: 10,001 – 100,000 VISITORS PER YEAR

FIRST PLACE WINNER
Noelridge Park Gardens, Cedar Rapids, Iowa

SECOND PLACE WINNER
Tulsa Garden Center & Teaching Garden at Woodward Park, Tulsa, Okla.

THIRD PLACE WINNER
Purdue Extension-Marion County Demonstration Garden, Indianapolis, Ind.

HONORABLE MENTION
Horticultural Art Society Demonstration Garden, Colorado Springs, Colo.

CATEGORY III: OVER 100,000 VISITORS PER YEAR

FIRST PLACE WINNER
Toledo Botanical Garden Metropark, Toledo, Ohio

SECOND PLACE WINNER
Green Bay Botanic Garden, Green Bay, Wis.

THIRD PLACE WINNER
Deep Cut Gardens, Middletown, N.J.

HONORABLE MENTION
Cantigny Park & Gardens, Wheaton, Ill. Ashton Gardens at Thanksgiving Point, Lehi, Utah Boerner Botanical Gardens, Milwaukee, Wis.


A complete collection of photos of all contest entrants can be found on the AAS website at all-americaselections.org/landscape-design-contest-winners/.
 

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