Just a suggestion - perhaps next year, there could be a category for those of us primarily interested in aroids (and other foliage-first houseplants)? It really seems like this was weighted towards flowers, outdoor scenes, etc - but some of us are just here for the vines and leaf variegation! It would be cool to see this in 2018...

That's a good suggestion. The categories will change next year. A "Vines" category is a possibility. So is "Foliage." I'm personally crazy about variegated plants, so I would always vote for that one, possibly as a special contest on its own. "Houseplants" could be iffy because they already fit well into the "Containers" category and because many of the houseplants in the cold zones could be outdoor plants for people in warmer zones.

I would like to reinforce the notion of setting the categories early, so folks can work during the growing season to capture photos that fit into the contest.

Zuzu, my sister was quite taken with variegated foliage one season to the point I called it her 'clown phase.' Funny how that works, some years I'm drawn to purple foliage, orange flowers, or who knows what...

I happened onto this thread today and am wondering if the photo categories have been determined for next year? Seems it would be valuable information for all the photographers out there to know what to focus (ha ha) on, especially now that our gardens are starting to wake up for another season. I'm hoping for a bit of a change-up, there are so so many lovely plant groups to show-case.

We haven't even begun thinking about the 2018 photo contest. We usually start thinking about it in late summer, early fall. This year we will welcome suggestions on the categories.

I looked back through the comments, and found the following suggestions for categories:

Vines
Foliage
Variegated
Houseplants
Dahlias
Aroids

I seem to also recall a comment to clarify that Bulbs could also include corms and tubers (or perhaps it was already clarified, I forget).

I'd like to see a category for grasses, and I find trees/shrubs confusing, perhaps they could each have their own category (although I suppose what one person might consider a shrub another might think of as a tree).

Perennials and annuals always seem to get mixed up, I suppose that is a zone issue.

One thing I would like to see is if there is a flower-specific category, keep all those photos together. I know some photos have been submitted into more than one category which I find a bit odd. Since we are not allowed to resubmit prior year photos, it seems to follow that a double-entry in a given year would be treated much the same.

I rarely delve into the flower-specific forums, but perhaps Dave may have a way to track the traffic in those to better align with what folks' current interests are.

Did we have a pollinator category last year? Lots of great photos that are really the bug rather than whatever plant it is perched on.

I'm sure there are more suggestions, and as I noted earlier, it would be nice to know what the categories will be during the growing season so all of our wonderful photographers can plan accordingly.

However it shakes out is good - I just enjoy looking at all the great pictures.

Yesterday I tried to find that discussion but gave up after awhile. Where was it?

I just looked through all the threads associated with the 2017 photo contest. There may be other threads as well but I suck at searching.

I spent way too much time searching through the threads so I was hoping you might remember where you saw it,

I definitely share your sentiment about photos submitted into more than one category. It does seem like 'double dipping'.

I like the idea of a category restricted to photos from the database. I realize that is redundant with every other category but it would exclude the broader garden and landscape shots, and presumably be focused on a single plant, or group of similar plants. Of course it would also reward folks who have been contributing to the database. If you don't like the redundancy of it, maybe there's a way you can reward the winners from the other categories by featuring the top database photos among all of them.

I haven't studied every nook and cranny of the contest so maybe this is already built in (forgive my absent mindedness)... I'm just trying to think of how to best display the highlights of the database, and motivate people to contribute.

Baja, yes -- database contribution is key. I can get caught up in the drama/angst/weirdness of some threads, but then . . .

I feel like the database photos are our long lasting footprints here (as long lasting as a digital footprint can be)... and they have some value for others as a point of comparison.

The database photos are already receiving a certain sort of ranking based on thumbs up, which has a surprisingly wide dynamic range from 0 (many photos) to 50 or 60 (the ones that get caught in the "recently popular" trending images). I'm guessing the average is 2 or 3. Is that pessimistic? Now people give thumbs ups for all sorts of reasons unrelated to the actual photography, of course, but maybe the easiest solution would be to come up with a group of most-thumbed database images of the year, maybe even for each gallery. For all I know this already exists.