A PROUD TRADITION

Each year since 1995, the Garden Club of America (GCA) has awarded one plant the Montine McDaniel Freeman Horticulture Award, thereby designating it as the GCA Plant of the Year. The criteria for this award, known as the Freeman Medal, is simple. Any winning plant, be it a tree, shrub, perennial or vine, must possess superior ornamental attributes. That’s a given among plant-award programs, but the Freeman Medal requires a key detail: the species must be native to North America. The goal of this award is to encourage the preservation, propagation and use of beautiful plants that have excellent ecological function but tend to be overlooked for gardens.

Plants are nominated for the Freeman Medal by members of GCA chapters across the United States. They’re then considered by a Selection Committee made up of professional horticulturists and nursery-people, who look at the nominees’ ornamental and ecological or environmental functions—for example, how they support wildlife or how they control erosion. Availability is also weighed; the plant should be underused and in need of promotion in at least one region where it would succeed, but also in production by growers, so that it is available in the trade. The committee can choose one or two plants as Honorable Mentions each