Award Winners and Other Highlights From the 2022 Summer Summit for Plants
August 22, 2022 
The National Garden Bureau (NGB), All-America Selections (AAS), and Home Garden Seed Association held their 2022 Summer Summit earlier this month in Des Moines and Ames, IA, where organizers were able to offer a wide range informational activities in just two days.
On Wednesday, August 3, the group of attendees learned about and saw:
- An update from all three organizations, launched by a video from the Lee College Horticulture Program that outlined how AAS and NGB has helped and supported their horticulture classes for their inmates.
- The Robert D. Ray Asian Garden Walk
- The Greater Des Moines Botanical Garden, where various AAS Winners were planted along the walled Koehn Garden
- The Justice League of Food and The Hall, where disadvantaged youth are taught hospitality career skills and prepared lunch for the group
- The home of the World Food Prize, a platinum LEED Certified building that is also on the National Register of Historic Buildings and serves as the headquarters for the international World Food Prize Award, the brainchild of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Normal Borlaug.
- A bus tour of the Iowa State Fairgrounds led by fairgrounds’ CEO Gary Slater, the Discovery Garden (an AAS Display Garden at the fairgrounds, planted and tended by the Polk Country Master Gardeners) and the famous Butter Cow
- The Better Homes & Gardens Test Garden, on the Dotdash Meredith Corporation campus
- The Pappajohn Sculpture Garden
Thursday, August 4 was spent in Ames, IA, home of Iowa State University (ISU), which hosted the following tours:
- The ISU Seed Lab, where many of the seeds bought and sold by the group are tested for a wide variety of diseases and pathogens to ensure safe seeds for the industry
- The private home garden of Ed Lyons, the Director of Reiman Gardens
- The HGSA Trials at Roots2Rise, a CSA grower just north of Ames
- A tour of Roots2Rise and presentation by the owner
- The AAS Trials at Reiman Gardens
- The Lewis & Art Exhibition at Reiman Gardens.
- A live consumer focus group by NGB where questions centered around the whys and why-nots consumers have when buying garden plants.
- The annual Awards Banquet where the Breeder’s Cup and Lifetime Achievement Awards were given by AAS and HGSA (see below for more)
At the close of the Awards Banquet, Aaron Saks from West Coast Seeds invited everyone to mark their calendars for the Summer Summit 2023 in Vancouver, British Columbia. That event will be Sept. 5-8, 2023.
Home Garden Seed Association Lifetime Achievement Award
The Home Garden Seed Association (HGSA) established its Lifetime Achievement Award to honor key people in the industry — those who have devoted their lives to making quality seed available to home gardeners — with awards.
During the Summit, the HGSA announced that the 2022 Lifetime Achievement Award recipient was posthumously given to Dave Salman of High Country Gardens. Salman, a pioneer of waterwise gardening, passionate plant explorer, and charismatic storyteller, passed away Sunday, June 5, 2022. His commitment to cultivating a palette of beautiful waterwise plants transformed gardening in the American West. David founded Santa Fe Greenhouses, High Country Gardens and Waterwise Gardening. For decades, he encouraged environmentally conscious gardening practices, long before “organic” became a household word. He was also an enthusiastic, highly sought-after speaker on these subjects.
Breeder’s Cup Award Winner
Patty Buskirk
Also during the Summit, AAS presented its prestigious Breeder’s Cup Award, which recognizes a plant breeder who dramatically influenced horticulture by breeding new cultivars that brought significant improvements to those classes, to Patty Buskirk of Seeds By Design and Terra Organics.
Buskirk is the managing partner for Seeds by Design, Terra Organics, and Aurora Seed. She oversees the day-to-day administration, research, development, marketing, and production activities. Buskirk started in the seed industry in 1981 as a squash breeder assistant with Steenseed in Chico, CA. After college, she accepted a job with Northrup King in Gilroy, CA, as an assistant brassica breeder. In 1987, she moved back home to Northern California to work for NPI/Western Hybrid Seed. With her partners, she started Seeds by Design in 1994. Terra Organics was established in 1999 with the goal to offer a variety of organic seed.
“I was surprised, honored, and humbled to be presented with the 2022 AAS Breeders Cup award,” Buskirk says. “Receiving this award for my plant breeding efforts from my peers just validates that I work in the most wonderful industry filled with esteemed colleagues and lifelong friends that feel like family. I encourage all plant breeders to follow their hearts and create new varieties in any species/group they choose, creativity has no limit.”
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