Hibiscus has its own category. Why? I do wish this could be changed. This means that so many other wonderful perennials have to be crammed into another category.

Hibiscus acquired its own category because there were so many hibiscus photos entered as Tropical Flowers, Shrubs, Perennials, and even Annuals (when Perennials and Annuals were separate categories in the past). It seemed wiser to have a separate category for these photos so that they could compete with one another instead of with other Tropical Flowers, Shrubs, Perennials, and Annuals.

I might be misunderstanding the second part of your comment, but I fail to see how this "means that so many other wonderful perennials have to be crammed into another category." It actually frees up some space, which would otherwise be taken up by hibiscus photos, for those other perennials.

And there are the Orchids again (!) lumped together with Tropicals. Sigh!
Btw Orchids grow on every continent except Antarctica...

Maybe there can be a separate orchid one for next year.

I started to look at the gorgeous pictures and wouldn't you know it - the Orchids and Tropical group has some very pretty Cactus/Epiphyllum blooms despite having their own category, and there is a blue Passiflora which looks suspiciously like Passiflora incarnata which is hardy to zone 5b. (Added later - someone posted a Datura! Daturas grow in NJ. ) To tell you the truth, it took a bit of the fun away.
So much for categories!
Perhaps it helps to look at this link to understand the humongous size of the "Orchid family' we are not talking about a few hobbyists growing Orchids!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Please forgive me for venting a bit, I am just looking for some fairness.

Many people just have gardens without truly knowing what their plants even really are. Every year we get a lot of people adding daylilies to the lilium category and visa versa. Despite the category named Lilies (lilium), we get everything that has lily as a common name; Water lily, Peruvian Lily, or Princess Lily, Lily of the Nile, Blackberry lily, etc. We get camellias in the dahlia category. Cosmos in the hibiscus category. Admin tries to catch and move them to their correct categories before voting starts but don't always catch them all. I'm sure many think a gorgeous Epiphyllum certainly isn't a cactus and any passiflora bloom is tropical looking to them, despite any zone hardiness.
I understand your frustration, admin is always open to fine tuning the categories as they have done over the years since this contest has started. I enjoy the contest for what it is, not perfect but something fun, especially this year! It's something anyone can participate in whether a seasoned gardener or just a hobbyist photographer of their plants.

We try to move misplaced photos into the appropriate categories, but a cactus image can't be moved to the Cacti and Succulents category if the person already has five entries in that category.

Then one might delete it and ask the person politely to post an appropriate picture? How do they always ask on fb - "just asking for a friend" ?
To tell you the truth, my favorite is the misc category!

Perhaps next year Orchids will finally have their own category. I am looking forwards to it.

Hi All,
With the 2020 contest over, I'll have to say I really enjoyed participating: entering photos, judging photos, seeing all the great winning pictures. We have some talented gardeners and photographers!

This was my first year and I did learn some things. I had some trouble deciding where to put my photos. For example, I didn't put my butterfly in "Wildlife and Plants" because to me, "wildlife" means "animals" i.e. birds, mammals, frogs... not insects. But I saw that is where most of the insects pictures went.

This category was so big (over 300 entries), I'd like to suggest splitting it into two:
1. Wildlife and Plants (Mammals, birds, frogs, reptiles, etc)
2. Insects and Plants (Insects, spiders, and similar small arthropods)

BTW: I like that you include the words "and Plants" for the category name. This is, after all, a gardening organization, and I like to see plants in the pictures with the critters!

Thank you for organizing the contest! Looking forward to next year!