I always enjoy the 'top favorites' -- and in this case glad to see E. purpurea in 2nd place. I usually root for the basic plant over the fancier hybrids, which I often find more expensive and finicky. How do you determine the favorites - most comments? most 'haves'? most submitted photos? or some combination thereof? Just curious, I always love to scroll through knowing they will all be beauties.

I essentially give one vote for each person who has contributed to the plant. So if 1 person contributes a comment, an image and has it in their list, then that still counts as one vote. Whichever plants that match my query (in this case, genus = 'Echinacea') have the most votes are then in the list (ordered by vote count, of course.)

At the moment, putting together votes I consider images, comments, and growers reports.

What about plants that turn up as "favorites" because they have large numbers of negative comments... "don't grow this one!" "doesn't make it through winter" "poor performer" etc

or do you just weed out those "winners?"

My favorite is white swan. It has an architectural quality that holds its own in a border.