Free Online Gardening Talks!

Grape vines are beautiful and have very flexible uses in the garden - not to mention they provide tasty and healthy treats. Growing them here can be difficult. If you want to give your grape vines the best possible chance to survive and thrive – join us for this beginners class aimed at providing gardeners with the information necessary to choose, site, plant, train and maintain healthy grapes in Southern Arizona. The lecture portion may run longer than 1 hour.

A noxious weed is a weed that had been designated as harmful or injurious. Learn how to identify these invasive plants and what you should be doing about them.

What beautiful flowers can you grow in the desert? Annuals and perennials can bring year-round color to your garden whether in the ground or containers. Glenda will cover selection as well as sun, water and fertilizer needs. Join her to begin planning for a beautiful, colorful garden.

In Arizona wildflowers are beautiful and also fickle. What makes a great or not so great wildflower year? How can you improve your chances of success growing wildflowers in your own landscape? Join Master Gardeners Kathleen Roberts and Arlene Madsen to find out.

Short Takes are 15-30 minute classes, focused on a single idea. No fancy powerpoint slides; just straightforward, common-sense information that will help you increase your gardening success. Today we’ll talk about how to successfully grow garlic in our climate, and why this is the time of year to get started. .

This is a follow-up to the Basics of Entomology talks. We’ll discuss some interesting and unusual insect behaviors that you can observe in your own garden. Bugwatching (like birdwatching) provides us with one of the simple pleasures of life and this talk will provide you with some great stuff to look out for as you garden.

During our cool season the weather is great, the insects and annoying critters are mostly inactive, less water is required, and the vegetables have higher nutritional value than warm season vegetables. So go for it! Learn about both in-ground and raised bed approaches, and the key steps to successful vegetable and herb gardening in the cool season.

Join us to discuss the Top 10 Things you can do to ensure that your Citrus trees are in optimal growing condition. This will be a beginner’s level class that even those with long experience growing citrus will enjoy.

Get a jump on the fall planting season by learning the ins and outs of vegetable gardening in raised beds. Master Gardener Michael Ismail will teach you about designing a raised bed, which materials to use, construction tips, plant protection methods, soil building, and more.

Come along for the final leg of our virtual tour up the Catalina Highway. In this talk we will be exploring our beautiful high-elevation evergreen and hardwood forests, from 7500’ to the very top of Mt. Lemmon. This talk is the last in a four-part series on native plant identification. Over the course of four talks, we will take a virtual tour from the Tucson basin up to the top of Mt. Lemmon, exploring our native plants and their habitats along the way. These talks may be attended separately or as a series. This class usually runs long – a full 90 minutes.

Short Takes are 15-30 minute classes, focused on a single idea. No fancy PowerPoint slides; just straightforward, common-sense information that will help you increase your gardening success. Learn this essential step of Integrate Pest Management. How do you catch and identify what insects are in your yard?

If you want to see the fundamentals of starting an in-ground garden of your own, look no further. In this 1 hour class, Michael will go over a detailed process of bed creation directly in our desert soils that will lead to sustainable, nutritious harvests.

Join us in a journey to discover the amazing power of the legume to capture Nitrogen, produce food, protect crops, enrich the soil, and so much more. You will want to devote a lot of garden space to these incredible plants.

This class is a follow-up to last month’s “Short Take” on garlic. Garlic has been cultivated for over 5000 years. t’s still a popular favorite of all home gardeners. Learn how to make it work here in our desert climate. We’ll discuss what types to plant, when to plant, how to harvest, and how to use your homegrown garlic.

During our cool season the weather is great, the insects and annoying critters are mostly inactive, less water is required, and the vegetables have higher nutritional value than warm season vegetables. So go for it! Learn about both in- ground and raised bed approaches, and the key steps to successful vegetable and herb gardening in the cool season.

The importance of proper watering techniques cannot be overemphasized! It is very common to have plant problems caused by poor watering practices which include under watering, over watering, and inconsistent watering. In this class local expert & Master Gardener Michael Ismail teaches you about the best equipment and irrigation methods which you can use to help eliminate these problems.

Part one of a two-part class on what makes a great plant. Learn how to select the best plants at the nursery – what plants should you be choosing anyway, what do you look for, and why? Then learn how to take care of your plants when you get them home. How to plant, stake, water… we’ll separate the myths from the science. Learn how to have greater success with all the plants in your landscape. Class will be continued tomorrow @ 3:00pm.

Part of a two-part class on what makes a great plant. Learn how to select the best plants at the nursery – what plants should you be choosing anyway, what do you look for, and why? Then learn how to take care of your plants when you get them home. How to plant, stake, water… we’ll separate the myths from the science. Learn how to have greater success with all the plants in your landscape.

Join us for a different type of presentation – Short Takes. Short Takes are 15-30 minute classes, focused on a single idea. No fancy PowerPoint slides; just straightforward, common-sense information that will help you increase your gardening success. Join Master Gardener Barry Weissman for some quick & easy tips on different types of trellises that you can construct for your own garden.

How do you cold-proof your garden for Tucson winters? What plants will make it through the winter unscathed? What plants look great and are trouble-free even in the cold weather? Get the best new ideas for how to have a beautiful wintertime garden.