I would like to see Wilson Spider win!

The only one of these that I've had for more than a month is THIN MAN. I love the bloom on THIN MAN, but it also tends to rust easily.

Nate

Palace Garden Beauty, hands down. Its beautiful lavender coloration is one of my very favorites. Belle Cook would be a close 2nd. Gorgeous color!!

Oh, I don't know :) One medal and so many contenders!
I don't have many of them, and some are new. Maybe American Freedom, or Betty Ford, or Laura Harwood since two people already voted for her :)

How many judges decide? And are they all from diff. regions?

There are nearly 800 judges and yes, they are from each of the 15 AHS regions. Over 700 voted this year.

We will be announcing this year's results on the evening of November 10 after the Fall Board meeting.

Heavenly Angel Ice deserves to win because it is a very good plant.

I'm not overly fond of UFs, but some really gorgeous pics of Heavenly Angel Ice may change my mind (I think Edward was one of the enablers). The only one I grow of the group is/was Shores of Time. As most of you know by now I had to throw out 2 mature clumps of it after it turned into a rust bucket. It sure was pretty and very hard for me to do, but it was too infectious not to get rid of. Anyway, I can't recommend it to anyone because of that. Sigh....
{{gwi:977190}}

Interesting votes so far and great pics. Hope more of you will join in and post your pics too. You just never know for sure who will get the honor and just to be nominated, I think, is an honor of its own.

Just to give more input, here is the list with the hybridizer and year of registration.

AMERICAN FREEDOM (Grace-Smith, 2003)
AWESOME CANDY (Stamile, 2000)
BELLA SERA (Stamile, 2002)
BELLE COOK (Brooker, 2001)
BETTY FORD (Kirchhoff-D., 2002)
BRER RABBIT'S BABY (Roberts-N., 2002)
CARNIVAL IN MEXICO (Santa Lucia, 2000)
CATCHER IN THE EYE (Kinnebrew-J., 2001)
CREATURE OF THE NIGHT (Reed, 1999)
FIREFLY FRENZY (Joiner-J., 2002)
FORESTLAKE RAGAMUFFIN (Harding-F., 1993)
FRANCOIS VERHAERT (Stamile, 2001)
GEORGE JETS ON (Yost, 1999)
GREY WITCH (Reed, 1999)
HEARTBEAT OF HEAVEN (Emmerich, 2004)
HEAVENLY ANGEL ICE (Gossard, 2004)
HER BEST BLOOMERS (Herr-D., 2001)
HILLBILLY HEART (Salter, 2001)
HOW BEAUTIFUL HEAVEN MUST BE (Carpenter-J., 2002)
JACQUELINE KENNEDY ONASSIS (Grace-Smith, 2004)
JANE TRIMMER (Trimmer, 2002)
LAURA HARWOOD(Harwood, 1997)
LIES AND LIPSTICK (Kinnebrew-J., 2003)
MANDALAY BAY MUSIC (Salter, 2001)
MARGO REED INDEED (Murphy-J.P., 2004)
MYNELLE'S STARFISH (Hayward-M., 1982)
NUTMEG ELF (McCabe, 1978)
PALACE GARDEN BEAUTY (Carpenter-J., 2000)
PERSIAN RUBY (Trimmer, 1998)
SHORES OF TIME(Stamile, 2002)
SPACECOAST GOLD BONANZA (Kinnebrew-J., 2002)
SPACECOAST SEA SHELLS (Kinnebrew-J., 2003)
SYMPHONY OF PRAISE (Bell-T., 2003)
THIN MAN (Trimmer, 2002)
VICTORIAN LACE (Stamile, 1999)
WILSON SPIDER (Oakes, 1987)
WISPY RAYS (Joiner, 1998)

Actually, except for two on this list, all were nominated for the HM list some years ago by their hybridizers!
Two on the list, Nutmeg Elf and Wilson Spider, were added to the ballot some years ago (under the Honorable Mention section) when I was awards chair.

It is an honor that all on this list have had to win both an HM and an AM to get to this point!

In a dry, miserable year for blooms-American Freedom did really well and even set pods, which many of my plants did not this year. So I'll go with that-though Laura Harwood is a favorite too. I have a few of the others, but they are either too new to fairly judge in a bad year, or while I like them they may not have the WOW factor (ie George Jets On)

Shores of Time is amazingly beautiful, make large clumps, and blooms for two months in my zone 5 garden. It deserves to win.

I love my Shores of Time. I live in zone 5 and don't have rust so she would get my vote.

So many of those I've never seen in gardens.

Of the ones I've seen, CARNIVAL IN MEXICO or HEAVENLY ANGEL ICE or maybe PERSIAN RUBY or maybe SHORES OF TIME. Although SHORES OF TIME gets rust, or so I've been told. I'm not even sure I've ever seen it; I think I'm confusing it with another Stamile. Speaking of which, how about VICTORIAN LACE, always lovely?

I'm bored so I decided to sort through my photos from summer and find some of the Stout contenders.
I will be doing a seperate post to show the pictures if anyone is interested. It's been really dead on the forum lately so I hope folks are still looking.

I think it would be very hard for me to pick just one that is deserving because many of these deserve it. Personally for me it would be a three-way tie between Persian Ruby, Margo Reed Indeed and Laura Harwood.
BUT...if I was stuck with sharp needles until I picked only ONE, I'd have to choose Persian Ruby.

Celeste

It's hard for me to choose because I grow and love many of the nominees. In my opinion, Shores of Time, Bella Sera, Palace Garden Beauty and Margo Reed Indeed are all deserving. But I would say Victorian Lace is tops because of its consistently outstanding blooms and plant habit.

Debra

There are a lot of beauties on this list. I just wanted to tell you, after you posted this, I followed up on Laura Harwell on the lily auction, and just won with my initial bid of $11 for 3 fans of Laura Harwood. I had seen so many lovely photos of it on the forum this year that I decided it needed to come to my house to live. Super!
kay

I would vote for Victorian Lace, but I am not sure how vigorous it is further north of here. Also, I think there are always some politics involved in these choices: Stamile and Salter have received the award three times each, I believe. Maybe it's like the Oscars: people feel it's so-and-so's turn to win something.

Judges are specifically asked NOT to take the hybridizer, year of introduction or how the plant has performed as a parent into consideration when they are voting for these awards. This is emphasized in judges training. While there might be a few bad apples in every cart, I'd like to think that the vast majority of judges TRY to cast their votes ethically and vote for the plant which is the best performing plant in the garden from the list - not just considering the bloom, but the foliage, scape, budding, branching, vigor, hardiness, distinction and so forth.

Are all the regions equally represented by judges?

I now add to my votes Victorian Lace :). It's not very vigorous here (yet) but I love the bloom :)

I actually was looking for the prior year Stout vote broken down by region and only found the other awards in excel/pdfs. I'm sure I'm just not looking in the right place. So if anyone knows where it is on the AHS site, please post the location.

Good question nat4b. I'm sure there is some triggers to avoid regions with more judges from skewing the vote but not sure what the exact method is. Nothing on the AHS site that I've found explains the process.

Julia

We do not post publicly how the Stout vote breaks down by region since that is not a requirement to win the Award. You can find the HM and AM results posted by region, since votes must come from 4 regions for the HM and 8 regions for the AM.
But with the Stout,it is simply the cultivar that gets the most votes. The number of judges varies by region. There are more judges in the regions with the most AHS members. Region 2 has our largest number of members, and also the largest number of judges. Region 4 is the second largest region and it has the second largest number of judges. Some regions with low numbers of AHS members ( Regions 7, 8,9) also have fewer judges.I don't think that having the largest regions represented by the largest number of judges would skew the vote. It would just give an accurate representation of what our membership reflects. Most, but not all, judges vote each year!

Off. Speaking of the AHS website. Recently my antivirus started to 'warn' me about it. You know some antiviruses put icons like green - safe, red - unsafe. Well, for AHS they put a red sign saying Known nuisances. In fact I just clicked Full Report button and that's what it says: Computer Threat. Threat Name: Malicious Site: Malicious domain request 2, etc.
I don't understand that and still visit the website. Plus I heard some antiviruses are overreacting :) Just wondered if anybody else got any warning.

It's a tough list to pick 1 from, there are a lot of reallt good plants on that list. I'm near Cleveland and SHORES OF TIME has done well for me. GEORGE JETS ON and HEAVENLY ANGEL ICE are both Ohio born and have done really well for me, but so have many others on the list.

Good to hear that some folks have luck with SHORES OF TIME. Now if only I could get VICTORIAN LACE to bloom like mantis's photo.

Julia

I don't have any of these in my own garden, but if I could vote it would be Shores Of Time. Only because I've seen so many beautiful pictures of it here. Sophies's testament that it blooms for two months is another reason. My vote would have to be strictly based on the pictures I see, which I'm sure would not qualify me as a judge, lol!

I have not seen Laura Harwood before, but that clump picture of Kathy's and the single bloom of Julia's are beautiful!

Vickie

I have quite a few of these, but most are fairly new. I managed to narrow it down to two. Based on performance in my garden I'd pick either HER BEST BLOOMERS or BELLA SERA. if forced to narrow it to one I guess I'd vote for BELLA SERA. This year it rebloomed and every flower looked perfect.
Val

Well, I have a problem now!! I only have 6 of these, looks like I need to go 'shopping'!! I have a plan for more room, so I will need to fill it. Of the 6 I can speak for Victorian Lace, it is a wonderful plant. It had a poly form this past summer, first time it did that. It overwinters very well, I have had it for many years. Some increase, although I did move it.

I would pick Palace Garden Beauty because it is just a very pretty bloom. It is new for me, so can't talk about overwintering, increase, etc. Cindy

Here's another vote for Palace Garden Beauty -- a strong plant that pumps out those beautiful, non-fading blooms in our hot Texas sun. My runners-up would be Belle Cook and Victorian Lace, both beautiful bloomers but not as vigorous here.

If I've calculated the "informal" tally, the results so far are in no particular order:
LAURA HARWOOD - 2
WILSON SPIDER - 1
PALACE GARDEN BEAUTY - 3
THIN MAN - 1
HEAVENLY ANGEL ICE - 1
AMERICAN FREEDOM -1
SHORES OF TIME - 3
BELLA SERA - 1
VICTORIAN LACE - 3
PERSIAN RUBY - 1

Fun to see what the comments are and what grows best in the different zones.

Julia