2022 American Peony Society Convention Flow Show Prep

The 2022 American Peony Society Convention isn't possible without the help of so many entrants and volunteers. Before the show opens to the public, APS members are busy as bees, hard at work creating the beautiful flow show the public sees. Flowers are selected for showing, stems trimmed, put into exhibition bottles with water, groomed for the show, tagged with variety and entrant, and then categorized into their show categories for judging.


American Peony Society Convention Prep
This year the APS Exhibition Committee made a change to have all entries submitted by Friday afternoon at 4pm. That way the judges could judge the flower show on Friday evening and have the show ready for the public first thing Saturday morning. Previously flowers were due by Saturday morning, while the judges tried to judge quickly late Saturday morning, often times delaying the opening of the show. I thought this change was wonderful for the show, although I did miss the time on Friday for group APS activities.


APS Novice Design Entries
Often times after entrants have selected the flowers they do want to show, they have leftover flowers that are not deemed to be "show quality". Usually those stems are made available for flower arranging. While a single stem may not be the perfect shape/quality for a ribbon on the exhibition floor, it can still be a valuable addition for a floral arrangement entry. I have entered the floral design categories a couple of times before. This year I had my Mom with me, and I got her to create a few designs as well. I entered four designs, and she entered three. It was a lot of work, but also a lot of fun!!