@dave, I still don't see why you can't please everyone on this particular situation. Choose the week for the plant, and let everyone post pictures of those plants from the entire 12 months previous to that week. Loosen up the rules!
It's not like the County Fair where you must have a plant in the peak of perfection to take to the fair to win a ribbon. We are all over the world, meeting on the internet and we all have grundles of beautiful pictures of our flowers when they were at their best.
