After this class, you will never look at a rhododendron the same way again. Rhododendrons have a variety of leaf and flower characteristics that make them distinguishable from one another and can be useful in identification. This class will introduce you to these features in order to increase your appreciation of the vast variety of plants in this genus. The class will also provide guidance on pruning rhododendrons to allow you to get the most out of your plants.

A sub-irrigated planter (SIP) is a generic name for a type of container gardening where the water is introduced below the soil surface. This class will demonstrate how to apply the SIP principles to both smaller container planters and large raised or handicapped accessible beds.

Supports MG Priority: Water Conservation

In this class we will look at creating resilient ecosystems, conserving resources, and fostering biodiversity in our gardens and landscapes by applying the principles of Permaculture, Biodynamics, Food forests, and other organic gardening and farming systems.

Starting a new garden can be a daunting task for beginners, and for those who are more experienced. This class helps you consider the elements that make a garden a delightful place to enjoy in solitude and with friends and family. We will look at choosing plants that will mature gracefully, hardscape that showcases the plants, and ways to avoid costly mistakes.

Supports MG Priority: Nearby Nature

Interested in eating locally-grown food but don’t have the time or space to grow your own? Want to learn more about the benefits of buying food grown locally? Come hear a panel discussion about where to look for and buy food grown by others in your area. This panel will discuss local farms, farmstands, farmer’s markets, community supported agriculture (CSA), and Island County Master Gardener’s community and school garden programs. Come ask all those questions you have about the availability of locally grown food.

Do you love sweet juicy strawberries? This Make-n-Take class will give you the secrets for mixing the best soil for growing strawberries. After creating the mix, you will plant up two strawberry plants to take home. This hands-on class complements Sue's Strawberries! class but the classroom class is not required to get your hands dirty in this class!

Don’t we all love strawberries? Yes, you can grow your own! Strawberries are one of the easiest fruits to grow, and they are far more flavorful than those you bring home from the grocery store. We’ll explore plant selection, how-to planting for your spaces — especially here on Whidbey, care and concerns through the season from harvesting to storage and some fun facts and interesting history.

The class is designed for beginners to experienced gardeners who want to expand or refresh their knowledge or get more creative with their plantings or new varieties.

Supports MG Priority: Local Food

Discover the viral, space-saving secret gardeners everywhere are talking about—Seed Snails! In this hands-on workshop, you’ll learn how to roll up your own compact, efficient seed-starting coils that nurture strong, healthy seedlings with minimal fuss and equipment. Walk away with your very own ready-to-grow seed Snail and the know-how to start your spring garden the smart way. Perfect for small spaces, busy schedules, and gardeners of all experience levels!
*Note: Your seed snail will measure about 5–6" wide and tall—please bring a sturdy bag or box to transport yours upright.

Futurescaping: Ancient Wisdom Meets Tomorrow’s Gardens
What will the gardens of the future look like—and how can we shape them today? Garden journalist Erica Grivas guides attendees through the next wave of gardening, where time-tested traditions meet cutting-edge innovations. Explore how climate-ready plants, naturalistic design, smart technology, and sustainable practices are transforming landscapes worldwide. Gain practical ideas to future-proof your garden, enhance biodiversity, and thrive in a changing world—no matter your space or experience.

We will explore properties of healthy soils that gardeners can influence and why gardeners should strive to enhance them. We will draw connections between healthy soil and human health.

Supports MG Priority: Soil Health

​

Composting is a powerful way to align with nature, enriching your soil with fertility, structure, hydration, and beneficial microbes while contributing to carbon sequestration. This practical workshop delves into the many benefits of composting and offers a clear, step-by-step understanding of the composting process
Topics include the "how" of composting including selecting input materials, choosing a composting location, and deciding between hot and cold composting methods, as well as troubleshooting common issues and maximizing the use of finished compost. The workshop also addresses the challenges and choices gardeners face in composting at home or in community gardens
By the end of this class, participants will have the knowledge and confidence to compost effectively, appreciate the value of composting in sustainable gardening, and feel motivated to implement or improve composting practices in their home or community gardens

Supports MG Priority: Soil Health

This one-hour class provides an introduction to Integrated Pest Management (IPM), a sustainable approach to managing pests using a combination of effective, environmentally conscious strategies. Participants will learn to define pests and pesticides, understand the IPM pyramid of tactics, and explore key concepts such as pest prevention, monitoring, and tolerance thresholds. The course emphasizes the integration of multiple tactics to manage pests effectively, evaluating results for continuous improvement, and utilizing pesticide management resources responsibly. Perfect for gardeners, landscapers, and anyone seeking practical, eco-friendly pest management solutions.

Supports MG Priority: Clean Water

Get all the plants you need for the year at a lower price by sowing seeds and dividing/propagating the ones you already have. Learn the easiest way to successfully sow seeds without much effort on either a small or large scale. No heat mats, greenhouse, or lights needed. Dividing and propagating plants can save you tons of money in your landscaping and is also easy to do.

An individual garden plot is a classic example of a microclimate—a small, localized area where conditions like temperature, humidity, wind exposure, sunlight, and frost risk can differ noticeably from neighboring spots, even within the same yard or just next door. Despite sharing the same regional (macro) climate, these variations arise from subtle factors such as slope, orientation, nearby structures, vegetation, and soil.
This session will empower you to identify, map, exploit, and even create beneficial microclimates in your garden. You'll learn how to extend your growing season, protect plants from extremes, and successfully grow a wider variety of crops—including borderline heat-lovers like tomatoes and peppers—by tailoring conditions to plant needs.
By understanding and working with these localized conditions, you'll turn small challenges into big advantages.

In this session, we'll explore the many advantages of Hügelkultur, a time-tested permaculture technique that builds fertile, resilient garden beds using decaying wood and organic matter.
We'll cover its key benefits—enhanced soil fertility, superior water retention, and improved soil aeration—along with suitable vegetables, what to avoid, adaptations for sunken beds or existing raised beds (including integration with sheet mulching), and innovative applications like forest fuel reduction for wildfire risk management and capturing runoff in rain gardens.
Hügelkultur is forgiving – start small, experiment and watch your soil improve year after year. It is a powerful way to build resilience in your garden while recycling resources.

What is soil? Is it the same as dirt? Why should I care about it? How can I care for it? How does it affect my plants? If you’ve asked yourself any of these questions, this class is for you. In this class, we will explore basic soil science, how healthy soil grows healthy plants, and soil’s connection to water-wise habits. You’ll leave this class with answers to the above questions and a basic plan for how you can care for your own soil throughout the entire year.

Explore the possibilities of "foraging" for landscape plants, which can be propagated in other parts of your yard, turning one plant into many. In this class, you'll create a miniature garden, using plants that have been foraged from Master Gardeners' yards then decorate with gravel, rock cairns, and other found items.

Have you ever wanted to pick fresh fruits and vegetables from your own garden but just felt you didn’t have the room for rows of produce? Or you just don’t want to do all that work and buy expensive equipment. Don’t rent that tiller! Forget about raised beds sprawled across your lawn! Edible gardens or foodscaping is a method of incorporating edible plants with traditional ornamental landscape plants. Add the concept of layering and your garden can produce an abundance of food while supporting a sustainable ecosystem. Additional benefits of your edible garden include enhanced biodiversity, fresh, healthier food, not to mention the savings on your grocery bill.

Noxious weeds continue to put pressure on the health of our native biodiversity and disrupt the practical functioning of these systems. In this class we will look at noxious weed species that present the greatest challenge to landowners and delve into practical management tools for succeeding in control or eradication of these species.

Supports MG Priority: Plant Biodiversity

​

This presentation focuses on learning ways to become resilient as a vegetable gardener, in the face of climate change. Growing a vegetable garden with EASE involves Evaluating your carbon footprint, Adapting to climate change realities, Sustaining soil health and Enjoying your garden! Whether you are a novice or experienced gardener, this presentation will help increase your understanding of climate change, its impact on gardening, and some new strategies you will want to employ.

This class will concentrate on pomes (apples and pears), showing pruning from a one year whip (root stock & scion) and for future fruit production, and the various ages of fruit production and its effect on woody growth. Common insect pests, fungal damage and how to minimize that damage using organic methods will be covered. Basics of renewal pruning for older trees will be addressed if we have time. Questions about other trees can be asked at the end of the presentation.

Do you love eating from your garden? Anza’s class will help you get the most from your small farm or garden year round. This class will cover the basics of soil, bed preparation, microclimates, season extension, timing your plantings and harvesting tips. Now is a good time to create your garden maps for your best harvest ever.

Supports MG Priority: Local Food

This class will challenge you to expand your idea of groundcover! We'll talk about planting in layers for abundant beauty, biodiversity, and ecosystem benefits. We'll get a deeper understand of the many benefits of using plants to cover the ground instead of bark or compost mulches, such as ground cooling, water and nutrient cycling, providing habitat, and more. Tobey will give tips on how to plant and maintain groundcover plantings to maximize success. We'll meet lots of new plants to expand your palette of options to make your garden more beautiful, climate-resilient, biodiverse, and lower maintenance!

In this class, we’ll take a visual tour of a 17 acre Stewardship Forest located on a windy South Camano Island bluff. Over the 15 years I’ve lived in the forest, invasive species have been removed and native plants that weren’t already present have been introduced. A balance of plants, animals, insects and other decomposers foster forest resiliency. We’ll look a what’s present in the forest and consider which elements can work in scaled down locations. Climate change, soil health, water conservation, pollinators and plant biodiversity are topics addressed by the forest tour.

Our changing climate presents many challenges to gardens and gardeners. In this class we'll discuss design concepts and ideas that strive to both prevent issues, solve existing problems, and help existing gardens adapt.

There are six keys in successfully growing vegetables in our area of the Pacific Northwest, preparing your planting location, timing of seed starting, key items for caring of plants and how to recognize and treat problems on plants during their path to your plate.

The Resilient Yard is for homeowners who want to know what simple steps they can take in designing and maintaining their yard to better deal with our changing climate. The presentation is broken down into sections on climate change, lawn maintenance, garden bed design and starting kitchen gardens.

Learn how easy it can be to build your own worm bin, what it takes to keep your worms happy and how to harvest the "black gold" that is vermicompost. We will build a bin, step by step, which will be available at the market place raffle after the class.

Supports MG Priority: Soil Health

Trees provide the greatest long-term impacts to the landscape and environment. Successful companion planting depends on understanding how and where tree roots grow, and on choosing companion plants and cultivation methods that are compatible with tree health.

NOTE: This class is 75 minutes in length and will extend into the free time between Sessions C and D.

Yes, some pruning mishaps can be fixed! Learn how and when to prune to fix common pruning mistakes on woody plants and how to restore growth for more manageable and less frequent future pruning.

​

Dave's longtime passion for dahlias comes through in this class. He will address all aspects of growing, propagating and hybridizing dahlias. If you are an experienced dahlia grower, or just want to know what the fuss is all about, Dave will provide his years of expertise in answering your questions.

Photo curtesy of Breck's

A homegrown tomato is the Holy Grail of the kitchen garden, and yet it can be one of the most challenging hot-season crops to grow in our moderate Maritime summers. However, help is on the way! Bill Thorness will share tips and techniques to help you have your best tomato year yet. You’ll learn about season extension, pruning, trellising, pests, diseases and proper fertilizing and watering.

Supports MG Priority: Local Food

Fresh figs are delicious and beneficial for your health. And fig trees produce very well on many sites on Whidbey Island.
However, online information is not always accurate. We will give you the information you need to decide if your site can reliably grow figs, which cultivars we've cropped, which we are still testing, and which to avoid. We'll teach you how to care for your tree. And we'll show you how to propagate your own trees. The class is made up of a 45 minute slideshow class with Q/A followed by 1/2 hour of hands-on propagation. You'll go home with your own, self-propagated fig tree!

Do you have a slug and snail problem in your garden? This class will provide information that will help you deal with these plant damaging pests. There are several ways to manage these slimy mollusks.

Supports MG Priority: Nearby Nature

Bulbs of all kinds provide enormous potential for adding color, form, and often fragrance to your garden. They never fail to surprise us. They can complement the often short flowering season of perennials and shrubs. Learn how to select and care for these gems that will add beauty to your garden for years to come.

NOTE: This class is 75 minutes in length and will extend into the free time between Sessions C and D.

Take your garden photos to the next level! This class will focus on learning skills that will enhance the photos you take of your garden and the wonderful natural world that surrounds us here in the PNW. We will cover what makes a good composition, how to use the light to your advantage, some basic editing skills, and a hands-on walk through the marketplace to practice the learned skills. This class will be geared towards using a cell phone camera but is applicable to any type of camera you would like to use.