Who are Master Gardeners?
The Master Gardener Volunteer Program
The Master Gardener Volunteer Program is a partnership among the University of California, the USDA, county governments, and California residents. For home gardeners this program is the main outreach and public service arm of the UC's Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources (ANR). The Master Gardener Program training and management is directed and administered by the county UC Cooperative Extension (UCCE) offices. Certified Master Gardener volunteers are agents of UCCE. In exchange for the excellent training they receive, Master Gardener volunteers extend horticultural information and offer educational programs and garden-related demonstrations in their communities.
How We Fulfill our Mission
Master Gardener volunteers are avid home gardeners who work to promote environmentally responsible horticultural practices. The goals include providing information about maintenance of healthy gardens to reduce fertilizer and pesticide pollutants into groundwater and surface water, conserving water, composting green waste to reduce landfill materials, and to improve air quality by reducing burning of green waste pruning. These goals are attained through talks and demonstrations, plant clinics, staffing gardens, staffing phone help-lines, training at community gardens, staffing information tables at farmers' markets, fairs and nurseries, writing newspaper articles, distributing UC published information, helping to collect data for UCCE researchers and much more.
Mission of the Master Gardener Program
The purpose of the University of California Master Gardener Program is to extend to the public research based information, verified by UC experts, about home horticulture, pest identification, landscape management, and other environmental and natural resource issues.
