In 2020, the Chicago Excellence in Gardening Awards (CEGA) launched the first-ever CEGA 60-Second Garden Video Challenge, enabling us to continue our mission to recognize the vital work of gardeners without visiting the sites in person during the pandemic. Instead, gardeners submitted one-minute videos to the CEGA YouTube Channel. In 2021, the restrictions imposed because of the pandemic were lifting, but that process was slow. So the 60-Second Garden Video Challenge returned.
The two CEGA 60-Second Video Challenges, between them, garnered more than 19,000 views.
Each entrant created a one-minute video to show off their garden, filled out an form on the CEGA website and uploaded their video. We post the videos to the CEGA YouTube Channel. Viewers then used the “thumbs up” to vote for their favorite videos. The gardens with the most likes were the winners.
The CEGA competition was, as always, free and open to anyone with a garden (“residential” category) or who belonged to a garden, whether it was a community garden, church or school garden, or even a business garden (“institutional” category). And entrants did not have to be from Chicago. We also added a “spring” session and a “summer” session, each with its own set of modest prizes. See the winners below.
Spring Winners
- Muhammads–Sustainable Landscape
- UIC Nutrition Teaching Garden
Summer Winners
- Imperial Towers Community Garden
- Trailside Museum’s Native Plant Garden