AAS Names Education Award Winner

All-America Selections (AAS) recently announced the Dallas Arboretum & Botanical Society, an AAS flower display garden since 1982 and an official AAS trial ground since 2002, as the Category III Exemplary Education Award winner. The Dallas Arboretum, with more than 375,000 visitors annually, hosted 500 professionals at the Plant Trials Field Day.

The all-day event included presentations, a new plant and product open forum, new plant showcase, lunch, trade show, Q&A, and tours of the trials and AAS garden. Jimmy Turner, director of horticulture research and official AAS judge, with the aid of Denise Robb, trials and greenhouse manager, runs the Dallas Arboretum Trials. Visit www.dallasplanttrials.org for more trial information.

This is the fifth year the AAS Board has recognized AAS display gardens for outstanding education. Entries were judged on event substance, educational content and quality of event publicity. Presentation style, originality, materials and garden display were also considered.

Three award categories were established based on the estimated number of visitors to a garden during its growing season:

• Category I: up to 4,999 visitors
• Category II: 5,000-99,999 visitors
• Category III: 100,000 or more visitors

AAS is a non-profit organization that tests new flowers and vegetables for home gardening and has more than 180 display gardens in North America. A listing of AAS display gardens is available at www.all-americaselections.org/.