Would You Like to Host an Open Garden?

 By MG Taffy Turner

As you tend to your spring gardening chores, think about hosting a Master Gardener Open Garden. It’s a great opportunity to share your gardening successes and challenges here in Montgomery County with your fellow MGs who want to know what’s worked for you—and what hasn’t.

Please be assured that we’re not expecting your garden to be a weed-free showplace. This is not competitive gardening, folks! It’s an opportunity for both hosts and attendees to get ideas, ask questions, and expand their knowledge.

Since the Open Garden program started in 2008, we have been invited to visit 94 gardens. This includes gardens of MGs, as well as the community vegetable gardens of the Friends House, Leisure World, and Asbury retirement communities. We’ve enjoyed the Blair Native Plant Garden at Nature Forward’s Woodend in Chevy Chase, the Beall-Dawson House Medicinal Garden in Rockville, and the garden at the Warner Memorial Presbyterian Church in Kensington.

Attendees can log one hour of continuing education time, while hosts can count up to three service hours for preparation of their gardens, including developing plant lists. Normal garden maintenance cannot be included.

Please consider sharing your garden with your fellow MGs. In addition to the benefits mentioned above, it is also a great incentive to get to gardening projects you’ve been meaning to finish or just to give your garden a good sprucing-up. Please contact MG Taffy Turner for more information or to get on the schedule for 2025. You can find her contact information on VMS.