2019 American Peony Society Convention ALM Judges Training

The 2019 American Peony Society Convention included an ALM (Award of Landscape Merit) Judges Training for any and all interested APS Members. An APS ALM judge should be a member that is active in the club, has a large and growing collection of peony cultivars, and has a thirst to help identify the very best peonies for the landscape. The training for APS judges kicked off the 2019 APS Convention on Wednesday afternoon with a 2 hour lecture/informational seminar to help familiarize potential judges with the goals of the American Peony Society Award of Landscape Merit program. We also learned the rating sections and criteria for awarding and deducting points when judging a cultivar.


2019 APS ALM Judges Training
The second half of the ALM Judges Training consisted of a field training in the garden of Kris Jurik. The judging exercise is intended to allow future ALM Judges to get hands on experience and guidance judging a cultivar, with the opportunity to ask questions and discuss potential point scoring. Once the group completes the guided garden judging of a peony plant, they are all asked to silently judge another peony plant in the garden on their own. The expert ALM Judges collect and review the scorecards for judging calibration. It was a hot day in the garden, but the new ALM Judges persisted through an almost 90 degree day to get firsthand experience, gain knowledge, and become proficient in judging peonies for the landscape.