The University of Illinois Extension Master Gardeners program is marking 50 years of operation in McLean and surrounding counties.
The program teaches volunteers research-based gardening skills to take back to their communities.
Brittnay Haag is the horticulture educator for Illinois Extension serving McLean, Livingston and Woodford counties. She said one of the biggest advances the program has made has been giving more scientific solutions to gardeners, as opposed to internet tips and family secrets.
“They really learn proper care and proper techniques that have been researched, that they may not have always done. A lot of them are like, ‘Oh, I learned this from my grandma 50 years ago,’ and that may not be the proper researched-based technique nowadays,” she said.
The program has also made progress in adapting its training, to meet more people where they are at. Anna Maleske, agriculture and natural resource program coordinator for Extension, said that rather than focusing on one group, they focus on expanding to any prospective learners.
“Whether that’s working adults or retired individuals, we really want to serve all members of our community,” she said. “So, trying to find a time that works for everybody can be difficult, but essentially offering at a time where we can help the most people take this training.”
Extension decided to add hybrid training, which allowed more people to enroll in their classes. Haag said that eliminated that restricting time barrier for people to attend.
“Our training used to be a 9 [a.m.] to 5 [p.m.], all day classroom training, and so we’ve adopted this hybrid version where people can do the training themselves at home, at their leisure, on their own time and then come together every Tuesday for that hands on part, just for three hours.” Haag said. “So, it’s a smaller time commitment that they have to be together but allows a wider range of community members can attend.”
The training for the Master Gardeners includes training sessions, quizzes and readings over 12 weeks that includes those university resources and other research for all kinds of gardening from flowers to vegetables.
Haag and Maleske said that while there have been those advances in training over 50 years, the needs of volunteers in the program have changed too, like what questions they have.
“Our Master Gardeners are in libraries, they’re going to give presentations, we have help desks for people who are coming to them to answer questions,” Haag said, “Yes, we’ve all continued to garden through 50 years, but I think the type of questions we’ve seen, a lot of people are into vegetable gardening now, growing their own food, being more sustainable…”
What hasn’t changed, according to Maleske, is the core goal of the program: education.
“Master Gardeners are all about just educating and helping those in their communities,” she said. “As time has gone on, those needs has changed, definitely, within each community, but they’re still upholding that communication and overall, just helping out those that have questions about gardening.”
Haag did say the communities vary slightly, but they share common questions most of the time. She said they still see demand for the training, regardless of what part of gardening participants are interested in.
“On average, we get 20 people that come to our workshops every time we offer one, if it's on invasive plants, or pollinators or vegetable gardening, there’s always an audience that’s interested in our programming,” she said.
How to become a Master Gardener
When it comes to becoming a Master Gardener, Haag said that the only prerequisite needed is the passion to help others learn how to grow. Everything else will be provided by the training programs.
“We’re going to teach you from trees to vegetables to soil, but our volunteers have that passion to help others,” Haag said. “Most of them have gardened since they were little kids and want to share that passion, but you don’t have to have previous knowledge of gardening or training.”
Since many kinds of gardening practiced, Haag said the program can’t teach people everything, and they don’t expect people to know everything either. Another benefit of becoming a Master Gardener is the skill to know how to teach yourself.
“Our goal is to provide them those resources, so they know where to go and look when a community member, somebody asks them, ‘what’s wrong with my tree?’ or ‘how do I care for this plant?’ they have those resources, they know where to look,” Haag said. “They go to those university, research-based information and they can help answer those questions.”
Maleske said the number of volunteers varies year-to-year, but figures aren’t how they measure success anyway.
“Ultimately, we are striving for having more volunteers, but it’s just great to see a group of people that volunteer their time because they appreciate the organization that they serve under,” she said. “So really, it’s ultimately some of this feedback we get from community members about programs that we have going on in the area … just ultimately that appreciation they have for gardening.”
In 2024, Extension reported 2,212 Master Gardener volunteers across the state.
