Is An Origami Flower Tournament Madness?

The 2025 “Battle of the Blooms” is now complete and we have a champion.

Whew! I can breathe again.

I call it “March Madness” because of its similarity to the basketball tournament, but I wonder if the real reason is that it’s crazy to run an origami flower tournament on social media.

Who cares about such things? Why bother?

For me the reason is simple. It’s my attempt to put something nice into the world that isn’t motivated by money. It also happens to be something that exists very far away from what I do professionally, and is possibly as close as I can get to doing something creative.

A Few Thoughts

• I wasn’t very well prepared this year. March sneaked up on me and I had a total of zero flower ready in advance. I was literally making them the night before almost every day. That’s why, when I was taking a mini spring break trip with my wife and daughter, I had to jump ahead to the Sweet 16 before the first round was complete. I’ll try to do better next year!

• I tried switching to PollUnit mid-month. Big mistake! The service is really much nicer than Mastodon polls, and I thought I could use it to also include folks who happen to be following along from BlueSky, or friends and family members who are not on Mastodon. But engagement fell like a stone because apparently Mastodon users were not inclined to click through, and one kind person let me know that there was no way to know when the poll was complete, as Mastodon does. Lesson learned.

• I failed utterly in another way. I signed up to do Hiro’s Photo Composition Challenge and I didn’t get out and shoot a single frame! Just too busy with work and school and these flowers. I need to be mindful of overcommitting.

• Believe it or not, I don’t have an agenda here, and hope people don’t think that. I’m not trying to get more followers, and I’m certainly not selling anything. I just want people to have fun. I think it’s especially important this year. And maybe it will be even more important next year.

I hope a few people out there got a tiny little sliver of joy from my flowers.

This Year’s Tournament By the Numbers

• 680. Total number of votes cast.

• 99. The highest total number of votes cast for any one flower: Daffodil, the fan favorite.

• 31. Number of polls taken, one every day during the month of March.

• 30. The strongest Loss (i.e. with most votes): Lavender beaten by Daffodil on Day 31.

• 25. The biggest win margin: Multicolor Chrysanthemum, which beat Blue Sakura on Day 20.

• 4. The weakest win (i.e. with the fewest votes): Orange Dahlia over Flannel Flower on Day 23.

• 1. The fewest total votes cast for any one flower: Cornflower, the most pathetic.

• 1. The smallest win margin, which occurred twice:

  • Blue Sakura over Poppy on Day 18
  • Orange Dahlia over Flannel Flower on Day 23