The Autumn 2020 Online show has now been judged. The awards have been decided and the show hall doors have now been thrown open (figuratively speaking, of course). This years judges were John Richards, Dave Mountfort,  Jim Almond and Ray Drew, with Rob Amos and David Charlton acting as stewards.

Following on from the extremely popular 'Interim' Online show, which was run purely for plants in pots/pans, for home-based members to see us through this unprecedented period of self-isolation, we wanted to get thing a little more back to 'normal'  - this show was for both home and overseas members with scope for entering plants in a garden setting and/or in pots .

As I'm sure you are all aware, the Society decided to cancel all of the remaining shows in the UK and Eire for the rest of the year . Because of this, we wanted to give members a chance to 'stage' those plants which would normally be on the benches between the 26th September (Hexham Autumn Show) and the 24th October 2020 (Kent Autumn) but with an added bonus. To make it more interesting, we also allowed images of plants taken from the 1st October 2019 - this extended period was to facilitate entries from members in the Southern Hemisphere. So if you took pictures in early Spring or even Autumn last year, you could enter them in this show but  none that were used in the Interim show; hopefully you can understand why. 

We hoped we would still get to see some of the award winning plants which would normally appear on our show-benches up and down the country, with a chance to see those which would sometimes appear at shows which you would perhaps not visit during the year. We also hoped to get a glimpse into our members gardens, to see the range and quality of what they grow-  we were not disappointed.

With 112 separate classes, we received 511 individual entries.

Prizes for the show - AGS gift vouchers.

The AGS have a range of 'Digital' Gift Vouchers and some of these are given as prizes each year for the online show.  For this show, there were three prizes available, each consisting of £40 worth of gift vouchers - equivalent to  FREE MEMBERSHIP FOR A YEAR. 

The categories for which the prizes were awarded as follows:                                                                                                                                       

The 'best entry of a single species, variety of a species or hybrid'.  The entry may contain more than one specimen (for example as in the case of a clump of bulbs) has been won by Ian Instone with his plant of Favratia zoysii ( class 10).

Ian also won the prize for The highest number of 'First prize points'. 

The 'best entry of a group of more than one variety of plant in a garden setting or in a container such as a trough' has been won by John Lee, with his 'Sunken garden with troughs and scree' (class 1)

Popular Vote by Members

When entries closed at 17:00hrs on Christmas eve, visitors could view all the entries in each class, but without the exhibitor's name.  Anyone logged in as a website user during judging could record their vote for the best plant or entry in each class. As well as presenting the official firsts, seconds and thirds chosen by the judges, the popular choice in each class is also indicated - Let's see if the judges got it right or not :)

Any queries, comments or feed-back to Ray Drew, Online show manager at:-

raydrew@blueyonder.co.uk