Q: What’s a fun way to earn continuing education hours while flexing your horticulture expertise?
A: Our annual Oregon Master Gardener Trivia Series, of course!
We’re turning up the heat once again this fall/winter and inviting OSU Extension Master Gardener volunteers to join us for a little friendly competition with each other. One Thursday a month, November through February, at 7 p.m., hop on our Zoom to test your gardening knowledge and vie for cool prizes—not to mention bragging rights for your county!
We’ll have 50 questions related to a different theme each month, and topics range from the super scientific and technical to the practical and historical, so there’s something for everyone. (Plus, it’s multiple choice, so even if you slacked on studying, you still have a 25% chance of getting it right!)
Botanical terminology, classification, nomenclature, plant parts. To score well, study up on leaf shapes, margins, and arrangement; common plant families; and the parts of flowers.
Gardening tools and gadgets, garden inventors and innovators, historic and current garden tech, and famous historic gardens will be featured in this session. We’ll learn about the history behind common garden tools, and amazing botanists and gardens that paved the way for modern horticulture.
All things seed-related, just in time to refresh your memories for the new gardening season! Study up by viewing the seed-related videos from the Growing Oregon Gardeners “Level Up” series and you’ll be ready for this seed drill.
A smorgasbord of unrelated garden trivia. Questions may be drawn from the nooks and crannies of the giant Master Gardener handbook, plant clinic experiences and questions, or horticultural pests of concern in Oregon. Challenge yourself and your fellow Master Gardeners—this season closer will be tough (and fun)!
How to participate
Join via zoom on the date of the event.
Connect to the trivia app (Slido) on your phone or computer.
At the start of the tournament evening, you’ll be directed to the Slido app to begin competing.
Multiple choice trivia, 50 questions per session.
Winners will be announced live during the Zoom event.
Each session counts as one Continuing Education Unit for Master Gardener volunteers.
Did we say prizes? Yes we did. For each session, you can win gift certificates to mail-order garden companies in the PNW.
1st place: $100 gift certificate
2nd place: $50 gift certificate
3rd place: $25 gift certificate
Winners will receive gift certificates approximately one week after each event.
The way that we currently think about, talk about, and act on issues of racial bias and other lines of difference in this country is woefully inadequate and it’s incomplete. . . The very robust and compelling evidence that has been coming out of the science community for the past ten plus years suggests that if we want to move to a radically different place—a radically better place—on issues of race and difference in this country, we have to pay attention to something called implicit bias.
Dushaw Hockett is the founder and Executive Director of Safe Places for the Advancement of Community and Equity (SPACEs), a Washington, DC-based leadership development and community building organization dedicated to bridging the gap between what people imagine and what they achieve. He’s the former Director of Special Initiatives for the Center for Community Change (CCC), a 40-plus year old national social justice organization founded in the memory of the late Robert F. Kennedy.
As an outgrowth of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation Initiative (TRHT), Dushaw serves as healing facilitator/practitioner. In this capacity, he has facilitated healing circles for numerous organizations including but not limited to the Independent Sector, the American Library Association (ALA), the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AACU) and the Michigan Council on Foundations.
He has served on the boards of numerous local and national organizations including the National Coalition for the Homeless (NCH) and the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC). He currently serves as an advisor to the Perception Institute.
The presentation
Hockett begins his talk by discussing the three characteristics of implicit biases:
They operate at a subconscious level. The nature of implicit bias is that we don’t know that we have it.
They often run contrary to our conscious, stated beliefs and values.
They are triggered through rapid and automatic mental associations that we make between people and the attitudes or stereotypes we hold about those people.
He continues his argument by discussing why we must focus on implicit bias if we are to stop harming entire communities of people. Among these are:
The tools we’re currently using to address bias are insufficient because have been designed to address explicit bias instead of implicit bias.
Implicit bias is predictive. It allows us to predict how people will act based on biases that can be diagnosed using existing tools like Project Implicit.
Implicit bias can also be preventative. It can help us to develop tools—including internal motivation and habitual practices—that can shift us away from our current model of reactive, emergency responses to bias and toward a preventative approach based in part on public health research.
An implicit bias approach helps to reduce the shame and shaming that arises when we talk about bias. An implicit bias approach shifts the essential questions from “Are you racist or not racist?” or “Are you sexist or not sexist?” to “How do we align our actions and behaviors with our consciously held egalitarian beliefs?”
Consider and answer the questions in this learning guide.
Share your best ideas from your answers to the questions in prompts 3 and 4 with your program coordinator. (Ask them if they’d like to receive this information from you via email or another method.)
Seed to Supper in the Garden was a special plant clinic held in April 2024 for new gardeners on a tight budget that want to grow food at home. It was hosted by OSU Extension Master Gardeners and held at Lupe’s Community Garden in Philomath.
The concepts of growing and belonging are essential to the success of the Oregon State University Extension Master Gardener Program. We subscribe to a philosophy of personal and communal growth—in our gardens and ourselves. We offer programs and services that welcome and serve Oregonians interested in gardening, regardless of their income or education level, physical or cognitive ability, age, race/ethnicity, or any other protected aspect of their identities.
None of us are born ready to educate and support such a diverse audience. In fact, mainstream U.S. culture—our media, educational systems, and social and political structures—often nudge us not to think far beyond our families or neighborhoods. Due to human nature, personal comfort, and/or social engineering, we often spend time with people who look, think, and act very much like ourselves.
In addition, the U.S.’s economic realities, social mores, and cultural practices are evolving rapidly. It can be hard to keep up with all the subtle changes in language and appropriate behavior.
Despite these internal and external challenges, Master Gardener volunteers must be ready to welcome and serve participants with diverse interests, experiences, needs, and perspectives. Accordingly, we require all volunteers (new trainees as well as returning) to pursue at least one hour of continuing education each year that will help them support the Master Gardener program in becoming a more equitable and welcoming space for all Oregonians. Because Master Gardener volunteers tend to be intellectually curious, we encourage them to go beyond that minimum requirement, learning about new cultural topics and perspectives that interest them and are relevant to their county’s program.
Every volunteer comes to these learning opportunities with different life experiences, interests, and exposure to the ideas and concepts within Growing & Belonging. To allow each volunteer to scaffold their learning appropriately, we assign each Growing & Belonging opportunity described on this blog to a specific learning level. These are labeled Level 1, Level 2, Level 3, and Level 4.
These levels aren’t designed to be exclusively sequential. Volunteers need not complete opportunities in Level 1 to advance to Level 2. If you’re a volunteer who has lived experience with these concepts or who has pursued similar learning opportunities elsewhere, feel free to dive into opportunities at Level 3 or 4. If you’re a volunteer who, for example, feels very comfortable being inclusive in one aspect of individual or identity (e.g., gender expression) and would normally tackle Level 3 or 4 opportunities, feel free to pursue Level 1 and 2 opportunities in areas where you’re less comfortable (e.g., disability).
Level 1: Foundational Awareness
Audience: Master Gardener volunteers new to specific Growing & Belonging concepts
Description: Level 1 opportunities support volunteers in developing an understanding of the elements necessary to fostering welcoming and inclusive learning environments. Level 1 learning opportunities raise volunteers’ awareness of common barriers to inclusion and introduce them to fundamental terms and ideas. Such learning opportunities include, but aren’t limited to:
recognizing and addressing implicit bias
understanding privilege of various kinds
identifying and remediating microaggressions
understanding the difference between equality and equity
using contemporary language related to aspects of individual identities, such as gender expression and disability
Resources at this level provide a gentle introduction to these concepts, with an emphasis on personal reflection and foundational knowledge.
Level 2: Building Understanding
Audience: Volunteers with some familiarity with Growing & Belonging concepts who are ready to deepen their understanding and connect Level 1 concepts to our programs and services
Description: This level goes beyond the basics to explore the impact of Growing & Belonging on communities and organizations. These learning opportunities may include opportunities to grapple with such topics as:
systemic inequality and its impact on volunteer programs and access to garden spaces, knowledge, and tools
the history and impact of discrimination in horticulture
strategies for promoting equity in gardening and community spaces
Resources at this level encourage critical thinking about one’s role in perpetuating or challenging inequality. Volunteers will learn simple, beginning strategies for engaging in inclusive practices within garden education and the Master Gardener program.
Level 3: Advanced Exploration
Audience: Individuals who are well-versed in Growing & Belonging concepts and eager to explore more complex and nuanced subjects
Description: This level delves into advanced and emerging topics, encouraging volunteers to engage with challenging and innovative ideas. Opportunities may include such topics as:
queer ecology,
decolonization in environmental practices
traditional ecological knowledge
intersections of identity, power, and nature.
Resources at this level invite deep reflection, discussion, and exploration of how these concepts can inform and transform gardening practices and community engagement.
Volunteers pursuing opportunities at Level 3 should be familiar—through focused learning or lived experience—with relevant foundational concepts expressed through Level 1 and 2 opportunities.
Level 4: Applying Growing & Belonging Principles
Audience: Volunteers with a solid understanding of Growing & Belonging concepts who are interested in applying these principles in their work and community engagement
Description: This level focuses on practical application, exploring how Growing & Belonging principles can be integrated into everyday practices and decision-making. Topics may include, but aren’t limited to:
inclusive community engagement
allyship
creating accessible gardening spaces
addressing environmental justice
Resources at this level provide case studies, best practices, and actionable steps for incorporating equitable and inclusive practices into gardening programs and outreach efforts.
Selecting your opportunities and getting credit for them
Some of these topics may be very familiar and relatable to you because of your lived experiences. We always welcome your perspectives on how these are explored through horticulture and the OSU Extension Master Gardener Program. If you have thoughts or feedback you’d like to share, please send them to Leslie Madsen, the statewide program manager.
We encourage volunteers to select Growing & Belonging topics with which they are unfamiliar, then grow from there. It’s normal to feel a little uncomfortable when you’re first learning about different aspects of human identity. These zones of discomfort, if we enter them with genuine curiosity and more than a little humility, are where the most learning and growth happen.
Remember, the levels aren’t designed to be strictly sequential. If you have a background with people experiencing homelessness, for example, you might feel ready for a Level 4 workshop related to gardening with that population. At the same time, you might get more out of a Level 1 webinar on language around disability, gender, or race.
After each Growing & Belonging learning opportunity, reflect on how the topic connects to the Master Gardener program in your county. Share with your program coordinator any topic-relevant ideas or suggestions for growing or improving the Master Gardener program in your county. To get continuing education credit for the Growing & Belonging opportunity, you must share this take-away from your learning with your program coordinator. (Ask your coordinator whether they prefer to receive this information from you via email or another method.)
For your annual Growing & Belonging education credits, you aren’t limited to the opportunities curated by the statewide program. You’re welcome to find your own opportunities. However, after each learning opportunity, you must provide ideas or suggestions as detailed in the bullet point immediately above.
If you come across excellent learning opportunities you believe should be showcased by the statewide Master Gardener program, please email Leslie Madsen, the statewide manager, to let her know you’d like to see them included.
We hope OSU Extension Master Gardener volunteers are enjoying our beautiful Oregon summer and are having excellent experiences in your volunteerism and gardens. Here are some updates about the people and work of the program.
Did you make it to the annual Master Gardener conference this month in Corvallis? Congratulations to the Joy of Gardening planning committee, the OMGA and the more than 200 attendees for an excellent two days of digging deep into gardening and Master Gardener education, camaraderie and connections.
We gave a sneak peek on the climate change projects currently in development, and we received excellent feedback from the Master Gardener volunteers who attended the session. Reminder: If you feel passionate about climate change and would like to connect that to your Master Gardener volunteerism, please sign up for our email list for future news and actions to take to be involved. We are seeking Master Gardener climate change advocates!
Congratulations to all of the winners of 2024 Master Gardener awards! Need some inspiration? Read about their accomplishments and work as volunteers in this digital booklet featuring all statewide and county award winners. You can learn more about the three winners of the Statewide Master Gardener of the Year award in this news release.
Seed to Supper is up and running again in 2024! We reprinted the course book, and thus far this year we have distributed 500 books throughout Oregon—with nearly 20% of those in Spanish. We also completely updated the facilitator support materials, and initial feedback on both the program and the support materials has been enthusiastically positive.
As of July 2024, facilitators in 15 Oregon counties and four other states have signed up to offer Seed to Supper and to use the updated materials. We debuted a new facilitator interest form to better document the distribution of Seed to Supper in Oregon and beyond. If you’ve offered the course this year and haven’t yet filled out the form, please do so, as we want to be sure to capture your thoughts on the course and materials, as it’s undergoing major revisions for 2025.
Thank you to the many donors who supported this progress by donating during last year’s Dam Proud Day!
Welcome to new Master Gardener coordinators in Curry, Columbia and Tillamook counties.
Paul Maree (he/him), Curry County, began in April.
Dr. Janhvi Pandey (she/her), Columbia County, begins in August.
Samikshya (Sami) Budhathoki (she/her), Tillamook County, begins this month.
We are excited for the skills and expertise our new coordinators bring and hope you’ll join us in giving them a warm welcome.
Goodbye to all of our Extension faculty, staff and volunteers in Josephine County. In June, the Josephine County Commissioners voted to stop county funding for OSU Extension. This is very disappointing and comes after a year of tremendous effort by Extension’s team in Josephine County and many colleagues at OSU to engage with commissioners and the community to address concerns, share progress and answer questions. This outcome does not reflect what we know to be true about our work and the value of Extension programs and services to the county. Read our full statement on this decision and our operational plan for the county.
In memoriam: Dr. Ivory Lyles. In April, very recently retired Vice Provost for Extension and Engagement and Director of the OSU Extension Service Dr. Ivory Lyles suddenly passed away. We remember him as a visionary leader and as a vibrant and forceful advocate for OSU’s mission and the communities we serve. His career of service transformed thousands of lives he touched through extension and engagement. Dr. Kristopher M. Elliott is serving as interim vice provost and director while the university conducts a national search.
Many of us are experiencing summer heat waves and impacts from wildfires. We encourage all volunteers to carefully consider your personal safety and local conditions when making decisions about your ability to volunteer during hazardous conditions. If you feel you cannot fill a volunteer shift due to heat, smoke,or other emergencies, it’s okay to decline attending Master Gardener gatherings; just let your coordinator know. OSU’s wildfire smoke/air quality page has resources to help you learn more. OSU Extension has many resources for managing in heat waves, including people, plants and gardens.
Please help inform our strategic plan! OSU Extension & Engagement is undertaking a strategic planning process and we invite you to complete this survey by July 31 to share your thoughts, input and priorities to inform our strategic plan.
Treat yourself this summer to two days of education and inspiration at this year’s Oregon Master Gardener Association Joy of Gardening Conference, July 12-13 on the OSU campus in Corvallis.
Two days packed with over twenty classes, keynote speakers, and horticulture tours led by OSU faculty, you’re sure to come away with new connections and ideas for your future gardening and gardening education. Current schedule includes:
Opening Remarks: The Master Gardener Program 2024 and Beyond with Dr. Leslie Madsen
Keynote Speakers
10 Cool Things We Learned from Garden Research with Sherry Sheng and Dr. Gail Langellotto
Oregon IPM Center: Hub of Information to Solve Pest Problems with Dr. Silvia Rondon
Tours
Oak Creek Center for Urban Horticulture with Nick Cavagnaro
Horticulture Science at OSU (Lab Tours) with Dr. Gail Langellotto
A Historical Tour of the OSU Campus Arboretum with Dan Blanchard
Classes
Soil – What It Is and How It Works with James Cassidy
Growing Your Home Lawn Sustainably with Dr. Alec Kowalewski Empowering Communities through Inclusive Leadership: Bridging Innovation, Diversity, and Well-being with Dr. Ana Lu Fonseca
The New USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map: A Look Behind the Scenes at How It Was Developed and What It Can (and Cannot) Tell You with Dr. Christopher Daly
The Bees You Must Have: Discoveries of the Oregon Bee Atlas with Dr. Andony Melathopolous
Growing Fruits and Berries in the Home Garden with Logan Bennett
New MG Training Module on Climate Change (Interactive) with Dr. Brooke Edmunds and Signe Danler
Hydrangea Highlights with Darren Morgan
Garden Trivia Live! with Nicole Sanchez
Top Picks for Low Water Use Gardens from the NW Plant Evaluation Trials with Heather Stoven
Outreach as a Master Gardener Volunteer: Activating Our Circles of Influence with LeAnn Locher
Garden Allies: An Introduction to Life in the Garden with Frederique Lavoipierre
Garden/Yard Tool Renovation: Maintenance, Sharpening, and Storage with Fred Alley
Resilient Gardens with Darren Morgan
Learn from Several Chapters Regarding Best Practices for Successful Plant Sales with Benton, Central Gorge, Yamhill, Douglas, and Tillamook Chapters
Best Practices for Growing Peppers and Tomatoes from Seed with Bruce Gravens
Junior Master Gardener Program with Jim Liskey and Kelly Noack
Heroines in the History of Botany with Lucretia Weems
Rainwater Harvesting for Landscape Use with Ann Geyer
Let’s Give Them Something to Buzz About with Dan Blanchard
Growing Onions, Leeks, and Shallots from Seed with Bruce Gravens
Safe and Sustainable Management of Pests in Gardens and Landscapes through IPM with Thomas Jima
Secrets for Growing Lilies Anywhere with Kenn Parry
Get the full schedule, learn about lodging, cost and other details, at the conference website.
Who will be the next recipients of each county’s Master Gardener of the Year, Growing and Belonging, and Behind the Scenes awards? We’re ready to take your reporting of awards.
All county-level award submissions should be made in cooperation with your local Master Gardener coordinator. Prior to selecting your counties’ winners, please be sure to review the criteria for each of the awards.
We’ll reveal the county award winners at this year’s Joy of Gardening Conference in July, alongside the incredible statewide award recipients.
The statewide award winners are selected through a competitive process at the state level. Each county may nominate one winner or winning team for each of the three awards. A statewide awards committee convened by OMGA and the Extension Master Gardener Program reviews nominations and selects the winners.
Please note that county-level winners are not automatically considered for the statewide awards. If your county wants to nominate a volunteer for a statewide award, you must do so using the statewide award nomination form. Typically, counties submit different candidates for the statewide and county awards.
Who will be the next recipients of the statewide Master Gardener of the Year, Growing and Belonging, and Behind the Scenes awards? Nominations are open and we’re ready to take your submissions.
All nominations should be made in cooperation with your local Master Gardener coordinator, and make sure to review the criteria for each of the awards. Remember, these are the statewide awards, not county awards which are done locally, county by county.
We’ll reveal the winners at this year’s Joy of Gardening Conference in July, as well as all of the incredible county award recipients.
The cost of food keeps climbing. One in five people faces hunger in Oregon. And the pandemic showed us the fragility of our supply system. Growing our own food—for us, for our families, for our neighbors—is an action gardeners can take to strengthen food security in our local communities. This year’s Growing Oregon Gardeners: Level Up series is aimed at helping gardeners take a bite out of hunger.
Nine free closed-captioned webinars will be broadcast via Zoom and streamed via our Facebook page on the second Tuesday of the month, at noon, February through October 2024. Experts in their field, from OSU and beyond, present on topics such as how to get the most yield from cool season veggies to growing produce to donate to food banks to how to grow culinary mushrooms.
This series is open to the public, for the experienced gardener and OSU Extension Master Gardener volunteers receive 1 Continuing Education Credit for each class. You can take one, or take all. This webinar is being recorded and will be available to view on our website within two weeks of airdate. Register today!
Here’s a bonus: if you can’t wait to attend these live events, we’ve pulled a collection of eleven past webinars devoted to growing food in this series and made them available on our website. That’s eleven hours of free education to get started with right now! We’re predicting a bumper crop of successful gardeners growing plants for food all across Oregon this year: see you online and in the garden!
After a national search, Dr. Leslie Madsen (she/her) has joined OSU Extension as the Statewide Master Gardener Manager beginning December 29th, 2023. Dr. Madsen most recently was the Associate Director for Educational Development in the Center for Teaching and Learning at Boise State University. She is an expert in evidence-based teaching practices that are informed by emerging technologies including different learning styles in the age of Artificial Intelligence (AI), as they apply to formal and informal learning platforms. She is equipped to support our coordinators and volunteers with evidence-based teaching practices, support both face-to-face and distant learning, support DEI efforts across programs, conduct educational assessment, evaluation and implementation, and support various digital accessibility technologies – among many other capabilities. Welcome Dr. Madsen!
A note to Oregon’s Master Gardener Volunteers
As I’m cleaning up my garden one last time before listing my Boise house for sale, I find myself looking eagerly to the future. I love to learn, and I have so much knowledge to glean from you about gardening in a temperate, wet forest biome rather than dry, sagebrush steppe.
Because I’m a historian as well as a gardener, I’m also thinking of the botanist I most admire, the late Alice Eastwood (1859-1953), who served as the herbarium curator at the California Academy of Sciences for 57 years.
Here’s my favorite story about Eastwood:
When awakened in April 1906 by the big San Francisco earthquake, Eastwood hurried down to the Academy to check on the collections. As flames licked at the building next door, the 47-year-old Eastwood scaled the banister of the broken staircase to reach the sixth-floor herbarium. Once there, she lowered 1,500 specimens—most of them type specimens—out a window. She commandeered a cart and horse and ensured the specimens stayed ahead of the flames, even as her own home burned. (Today you can find six of Eastwood’s other specimens in the Oregon State University Herbarium.)
Not surprisingly, Eastwood became a bit of a celebrity. On Eastwood’s 80th birthday, Smithsonian agrostologist Agnes Chase wrote,
I recall how thrilled I was in the spring of 1906 when the men here were all talking about how Alice Eastwood had saved the precious types in the California Academy Herbarium. At that time women were not admitted to the august Botanical Society of Washington, so we rejoiced not only that the types were saved but that you saved them. And not only do we admire your work. Your unfailing kindness and helpfulness to other botanists has endeared you to all of us.
Chase’s letter to Eastwood captures the fondness I already feel Oregon’s Master Gardeners—even though I’ve only met a couple dozen of you. Your generosity with your time and knowledge is such a tremendous gift to the people of Oregon. I am so impressed with the amazing work you already have done, and I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to work alongside you.
Eastwood also was famous for cultivating enthusiasm for gardening by building a network of garden clubs, botanists, and volunteers. Like Eastwood, I’m eager to welcome new Master Gardeners and expand our collaborations with organizations throughout Oregon. To accomplish this, I’ll need to draw on your wisdom, experience, and imagination.
Our work together begins in the New Year. Should you want to say hello before then, the best way to reach me is via email at madsenle@oregonstate.edu. I’m looking forward to connecting and growing with you!
The quintessential guidebook for being an OSU Extension Master Gardener volunteer has been updated and modernized. It’s available to read online and download and features all things Master Gardener, including our connection to OSU, the priorities of the program, and policies and guidelines. Access it here.
What does it mean to recertify? What are the continuing education requirements of Master Gardeners? How do we provide gardening recommendations to the general public? What is the relationship between OSU and the county-based Master Gardener Associations?
You’ll find the answers to these questions, and many more, in the updated guidebook, plus links to even more background and items to read. The new version is a more nimble, modernized version, and can easily be updated as needed. Happy reading!
