And the envelope please: Plants of the year for a very strange year The Perennial Plant Association and the All-America Selections have named their picks. By Tom Atwell Share So we guess Lesser calamint is actually more this year, as it's the Perennial Plant Association’s Plant of the Year. I. Rottlaender/Shutterstock The unusual events of the previous year have continued into the new year. Of course, the plants of the year for 2021 were selected in 2020; I have hope that the world’s difficulties will lessen as the new year progresses. The selections were, shall we say, unusual. The Perennial Plant Association’s plant of the year is calamint or lesser calamint (botanical name: Calamintha nepeta subsp. nepeta).