Whimsical Winners of the 2023 AAS Display Garden Landscape Design Challenge

All-America Selections (AAS) announced the winners of its 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.

AAS Display Gardens

The AAS Display Gardens were tasked with using its AAS winning flowers and plants in and around a theme of “A Whimsical Garden.”

For the challenge, AAS provided the gardens with recent AAS Winner seeds and plants along with variety markers that for the first time, included a QR code that sends users to the AAS website for that variety.

The gardens had the option to also incorporate older AAS Winners in their design to illustrate the theme. Gardens were encouraged to generate publicity and hold events to share the story of All-America Selections and AAS Winners.

Gardens are divided into three categories based on the number of visitors per year:

• Category I: fewer than 10,000 visitors per year
• Category II: 10,001 – 100,000 visitors per year
• Category III: Over 100,000 visitors per year

Judges

All-America Selections recognizes and thanks the contest judges who are industry experts in the field of horticulture and landscaping:

• Helen Battersby, Garden Writer/Speaker & GardenComm director, international region.
• Ron Cramer, Retired, Sakata Ornamentals and AAS Former President
• Barbara Wise, Sales and Marketing Manager, Crescent Garden

Winning Gardens

AAS celebrates the winning gardens from the 2023 Design Challenge:

Category I: Under 10,000 visitors per year

First Place Winner

• Mississippi State University-SouthMississippi Branch Experiment Station | Poplarville, Mississippi

Second Place Winner (a three-way tie!): 

• Montpelier Kids Garden, Montpelier, Ohio
• Weston Garden Center, Weston, Missouri
• Lee College Horticulture Program, Huntsville, Texas

Third Place Winner

• Master Gardener Association of Tippecanoe County Display Garden, Lafayette, Indiana

Honorable Mentions

• William Dam Seeds, Dundas, Ontario
• Cornell Cooperative Extension Oneida Co. Parker F. Scripture Botanical Gardens, Oriskany, New York
• Cutler Botanic Garden, Binghamton, New York
• Pima County County Master Gardener Demonstration Garden, Tucson, Arizona
• Community Arboretum at Virginia Western Community College, Roanoke, Virginia
• Hendricks County Master Gardeners Demonstration Garden, Avon, Indiana
• Harmony Demonstration Garden, Porterfield, Wisconsin
• West Coast Seeds, Delta, British Columbia

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, Oklahoma

Third Place Winner

• Purdue Extension-Marion County Demonstration Garden, Indianapolis, Indiana

Honorable Mention

• Horticultural Art Society Demonstration Garden, Colorado Springs, Colorado

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, Wisconsin

Third Place Winner

• Deep Cut Gardens, Middletown, New Jersey

Honorable Mentions

• Cantigny Park & Gardens, Wheaton, Illinois
• Ashton Gardens at Thanksgiving Point, Lehi, Utah
• Boerner Botanical Gardens, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

A complete collection of photos of all contest entrants can be found on the All-America Selections website.

For more information about the contest winners or how to participate in 2024, contact Diane Blazek, All-America Selections.