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Showing off your plants, even at a competitive show, need not be a high-stress experience. My first year in the club a I showed a few things in the novice category, won several ribbons, and was surprised to win best in show for the novice succulent category! I didn’t know the names of all my plants when I arrived at the show, and mort certainly were not the most spectacular plants there, but they were my best looking plants at the time, and that’s all you need to worry about. Come to think of it, some of those plants, now nine years later might just be ready to show again!
For those who have never shown plants before, the first thing you need to know is that this is different form our club’s show, where each members is expected to fill a table, or at least half of one. At a judged show, there are categories like Mammillarias, Parodias, Echeverias, Euphorbias, Madagascan Euphorbias, and the like. You can bring in one plant or many, and the show organizer will help you find the right tables on which to place your plants. There are also categories for collectibles, educational displays, group plantings, and collections. Check out the list of categories to see how you can contribute.
When considering plants to show, it may be best to start looking for the plants that look good the week of the show. Advanced growers have plants that look good all the time, or they may even begin grooming and pruning plants for a show months in advance. Me, I don’t plan well. I take stock of my collection a day or two in advance, looking for things that are clean, mature, well staged and/or about to be in flower. If you have a lot of plants, this can be a good strategy, since certainly a few will be in great shape for the show. When sizing up a plant for showing, here are a few things to consider.
A clean plant is one without dead leaves, brown spots, leaf dieback, dirt, pests or pest damage. The pot should be wiped free of grime. Cleanliness is next to firstplacedness… which is to say damaged plants don’t win ribbons. This of course, is what makes growing award-winning cacti so difficult. One mishap and the plant is scarred for life! That said, it pays to hold onto damaged plants, as they may outgrow damage or branch in such a way as to hide the damage. And if you have a plant with a bad side, you can show it on the table with the good side facing forward. As far as I know, judges are not allowed to turn the pot. You place the plant how you want it seen.
With a few simple implements at hand, you can get a good looking plant up to show quality in just a few minutes. I keep a few paint brushes around in different sizes and degrees of coarseness, and these are good for cleaning off spider webs and dirt from the leaves and stems. Forceps are useful for removing leaves and debris embedded in spines. A few puffs of air can dislodge perlite from the top of the pot. Leafy plants may benefit from a leaf shine, and a fine misting the evening before the show will clean and freshen all surfaces and allow the water to slowly evaporate or sink in without leaving salt stains (salt stains, in general, can be avoided by watering at night. But if you have them, they must be eliminated before the show… try a rinse with dilute vinegar and towel drying). Water show plants a day or two before the show to make sure they are plump and looking healthy.
Generally speaking, mature plants win shows. There may be categories for seedlings, but flower-size plants are preferred in the main divisions. Of course, in some cases this is simply not possible; a few cacti take decades to reach flowering size, and at that point may not be movable! Size isn’t everything, though. Well-grown miniatures, bosaied specimens and smaller plants can win ribbons if grown and staged nicely. Some judges may (should?) appreciate a smaller seed grown specimen to a larger field-collected one. Who knows?
Technically, it is the plant, not the pot, that is being judged. Nevertheless, you will almost never see a cheap plastic pot in a judged show, because staging is critical. The combination of the plant and pot means a lot. A well-staged plant will attract more attention than an equally well-grown plant in a pot that just doesn’t work. Fortunately we have lots of good potters around that make pots perfect for staging succulents. The real trick to staging is to place a good plant in a fine pot and hope that it becomes a great plant that looks like it belongs in that pot. This may take awhile. A fast growing sedum might fill out a pot in a few months and be ready to show. A cactus can settle in very quickly if the combination is just right, or if it clumps and spreads it make look best only after several years in a pot. This takes planning. When potting plants to show you have to do a little mental time travel, imagining how the plant will change in time to suit a particular pot.
Don’t forget to include a decorative (and functional) top dressing. Rocks and other decorative objects should compliment the plant, pot and top dressing, and be considered with an eye to color and scale. I like staging Lithops, for instance, either in a naturalistic way (with rocks that match the plant closely) or in a contrasting way (with a ground cover that makes the plants stand out). Red lithops in bluish rocks are eye catching! Orange Lithops in orange rocks are intriguing. This is a matter of personal taste. Will the judge like what you’ve done? Well, that’s another matter. Remember, though, whether or not you win a ribbon, the show is for the public. Make them go “Wow!”.
An interesting, and to me somewhat irritating, part of showing is that each entry is normally only allowed to have one plant in the pot. There are categories for group plantings, and these can be very creative and fun, but what about tiny plants that are best shown in groups, like lithops? I would like to show a tray featuring multiples of a given species (argyrodermas, for instance), but the rules say no. Larger, mature, and clumping plants often win over single-headed ones, even though many mesembs only form one small head. But that’s where the knowledge of the judge comes into play. S/he must be able to recognize a well-grown, but smaller, plant as being at least as special—and competitive—as the larger varieties.
Showing a plant in flower is one of the trickiest parts of showing. Unlike with many other pant shows, where flowers reign supreme, succulent growers don’t have to worry as much about getting flowers to happen on a particular day. (Imagine the hand-wringing experienced by Dahlia, Rose, and African Violet growers!). Succulents are grown as much (or more!) for their beautiful form as they are for their flowers. Nevertheless, flowers attract attention, and plants in flower are vying for top prize. The main problem, of course, is that many succulent plant flowers—those of cacti and mesembs especially—don’t open as early in the morning as judging happens, and some may refuse to open at all indoors without excellent light. If you have a plant whose flowers are wide open, will not close for the night or be finicky about being in doors, than by all means bring it in. Some examples would be echeverias and other members of the crassula family, Asclepiads (the succulent milkweeds or starfish flowers), Euphorbias and Pachypodiums. In some ways a flowering succulent can be a liability. Who wants to see half-open or stubbornly closed flower buds on a show plant? Knowing your plants well will help you decide what to do.
Some small amount of the judging relies on the plant being properly identified, but don’t worry if you don’t have a good name on a plant you want to show. At the event there will be plenty of people around to help you get your plants properly identified. In some cases it may not be possible to get a good name. I once showed a nice garden-variety echeveria clump without a name. Someone suggested E. elegans, which I put on the show tag. Apparently one of the judges had a problem with that name (there was a note on the tag after the judging happened), but the plant held its own on the table. Shows are more about, well, show than anything else.
My advice to novice growers: bring your favorite plants in your favorite pots, and have fun showing at NorCal. This is San Francisco’s only judged show, and it is great fun to see what happens.
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