Award of Garden Merit
Encyclopedia
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
Royal Horticultural Society
Royal Horticultural Society
The Royal Horticultural Society was founded in 1804 in London, England as the Horticultural Society of London, and gained its present name in a Royal Charter granted in 1861 by Prince Albert...
after a period of assessment by the appropriate committees of the Society. Awards are made annually after plant trials (which may last for one or more years, depending on the type of plant being trialled) at RHS Garden, Wisley
RHS Garden, Wisley
The Royal Horticultural Society's garden at Wisley in the English county of Surrey south of London, is one four public gardens run by the Society, the others being Harlow Carr, Hyde Hall and Rosemoor...
and other RHS gardens, or after observation of plants in specialist collections, and are intended to judge the plants' performance for conditions in the UK. Trial reports are made available as booklets and on the RHS website. The awards are reviewed periodically in case plants have become unavailable or have been superseded by more recent, superior cultivar
Cultivar
A cultivar'Cultivar has two meanings as explained under Formal definition. When used in reference to a taxon, the word does not apply to an individual plant but to all those plants sharing the unique characteristics that define the cultivar. is a plant or group of plants selected for desirable...
s.
To qualify for an AGM, a plant
- must be available
- must be of outstanding excellence for garden decoration or use
- must be of good constitution
- must not require highly specialist growing conditions or care
- must not be particularly susceptible to any pest or disease
- must not be subject to an unreasonable degree of reversion.
The AGM symbol
Symbol
A symbol is something which represents an idea, a physical entity or a process but is distinct from it. The purpose of a symbol is to communicate meaning. For example, a red octagon may be a symbol for "STOP". On a map, a picture of a tent might represent a campsite. Numerals are symbols for...
represents a cup-shaped trophy
Trophy
A trophy is a reward for a specific achievement, and serves as recognition or evidence of merit. Trophies are most often awarded for sporting events, from youth sports to professional level athletics...
with handles. It should be cited together with a hardiness
Hardiness (plants)
Hardiness of plants describe their ability to survive adverse growing conditions. It is usually limited to discussions of climatic adversity. Thus a plant's ability to tolerate cold, heat, drought, flooding, or wind are typically considered measurements of hardiness. Hardiness of plants is defined...
rating as follows:
- H1 Requires heated glass
- H2 Requires unheated glass
- H3 Hardy outside in some regions or particular situations or which, while usually grown outside in summer, needs frost-free protection in winter (e.g. dahlias)
- H4 Hardy throughout the British Isles
- H1-2 Intermediate between H1 and H2
- H2-3 Intermediate between H2 and H3
- H3-4 Intermediate between H3 and H4
- H1+3 Requiring heated glass; may be grown outside in summer
For plants requiring heated glass, further guidance is given as follows:
Minimum temperature
- 15°C Hot glasshouse
- 10°C Warm glasshouse
- 2°C Cool glasshouse
Since 1989, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
has had similar awards called the Mérites de Courson
Château de Courson
The Château de Courson was built in 1676 in Courson-Monteloup , on the south-west outskirts of Paris, France. It is in the Essonne département of the Île-de-France région....
, but these are drawn from a limited number of plants submitted by nurserymen to juries at the twice-yearly Journées des Plantes de Courson and the prizes are based solely on the opinions of the jury members as to the plants' likely performance in French gardens, not on extensive trials.