Registration now open.

Winter Gardening Know-How Series

Four 1-1/2 hour online sessions - one week night per week for 4 weeks.

Wednesday evenings, 7:00-8:30 PM 

November 5, 12, 19 & December 3, 2025

Join us ONLINE for a Winter Gardening Series!

Make your winter evenings a little more cozy with our all-new Winter Gardening Know-How series.  Sad your garden is slowing down for the season?  Don’t fret— winter pruning season is just around the corner.  Is winter the time you turn your attention to your houseplants?  Learn how to best tend to them.  Starting to think bigger about your global impact?  Listen to some great lectures about humans and how they’ve historically interacted with plants and how you can attract wildlife into your garden.

WHO SHOULD ATTEND: The Know-How Series is tailored to meet the needs of both novice and experienced gardeners, reflecting the Massachusetts Master Gardeners Association's commitment to science-based education. Our sessions are led by senior Massachusetts Master Gardeners, who bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to foster a supportive learning environment. Participants will receive handouts for most sessions, enhancing their understanding of the material. Additionally, there will be ample opportunity for live Q&A, allowing for active engagement and interaction with our expert speakers. 

TOPICS: At the MMGA, we love to talk about gardening and horticulture. But we also like to listen. We’ve selected four timely  topics based on countless discussions with home gardeners to create our four-week Winter Gardening Know-How Series with all new topics: 

• Winter Pruning: Why, When, and How to Prune your Shrubs
  Learn the basics of pruning deciduous shrubs, with an emphasis on structural pruning that can be done during winter, even for spring-flowering shrubs. You’ll come away with new insights and skills, including “how to” info on proper methods and tools.

• What’s Wrong with My House Plant? 
  As with our outdoor gardens, many things can go wrong when you grow plants indoors. Learn the factors that make for happy houseplants, including light, water, and soil...and how to provide them. Common houseplant pests and diseases are also on the agenda, as well as how to treat them.

• Humans & Their Use of Plants
  People use plants for food of course, but also medicine, shelter, clothing, decoration, fuel, packaging – the list seems endless. We’ll talk about how the move from hunter-gatherer to agriculture and then industrial agriculture fundamentally changed everything about our lives and the world around us. We’ll look ahead and discuss how the choices we make as consumers influence the future of agriculture and the environment.

• Inviting Wildlife into Your Garden
  Ecosystems are becoming more fragmented. Pollinator numbers are decreasing. And climate change is a reality. As gardeners, we need to create safe havens for our local wildlife. One way to do that is by providing food, water, and shelter. Learn simple ways to adapt your garden and gardening habits to welcome all sorts of our fellow creatures.

WINTER KNOW-HOW SERIES PRESENTERS are senior Massachusetts Master Gardeners (MGs) who are passionate subject matter experts and trained speakers.

Jan Weathers. A lifelong dabbler in gardens, MG Jan Weathers has a special passion for pruning. Initially self-taught, she (like many of us!) made her share of good cuts and bad until, as a Master Gardener trainee, she learned from professionals. Through advanced training and working side by side with horticulturists, Jan continues to perfect her skills and share them with other gardeners.

Bonnie Power has been a Massachusetts Master Gardener since 2016 (now a Lifetime MG) and member of the MMGA Speakers Bureau since 2018…and a serious outdoor/indoor gardener most of her life. Curious and research-oriented by nature, she has many horticultural interests and areas of expertise. Bonnie holds both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in Zoology, which informs her perspective on the management of garden insects. She is a member of the MGA Soil pH Testing team and also volunteer guide at Garden in the Woods, a Native Plant Trust botanical garden in Framingham. She learned to grow vegetables as a child from her father, and flowers and houseplants from her mother. Early in her marriage her father-in-law provided her first lessons in organic gardening.  At home in Marlborough, Bonnie grows a variety of vegetables and ornamentals (with a bias for natives).

Gretel Anspach is a Trustee of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, a Lifetime Master Gardener with the Massachusetts Master Gardener Association, and a recently-retired systems engineer for Raytheon.  She won the MMGA Lifetime Achievement Award in 2016. Gretel established and maintains a 20,000 square foot food production garden that has provided fresh produce to the Marlboro and Maynard Food Pantries for the last ten years.  Her primary interest and focus is always in the science behind horticulture.

A graduate of Massachusetts Master Gardener Training and long-time gardener, Laurie Bebick has been fascinated by nature her whole life. A practicing fine artist, she approaches gardening as both an art and a

science, always with an eye toward supporting nature’s creatures. When not working as a Certified Veterinary Technician, Laurie can be found in her home garden, spying on and offering greetings to all the critters who visit, especially Wally the whistle pig who lives under her garage. She is a graduate of the MMGA Speakers Bureau Training Program.

COST: The cost of the four-lecture Winter Gardening Know-How Series is $60.00, payable online by credit/debit card or PayPal. Classes are not available individually. Price includes a number of handouts and live Q&A time with speakers.

Grow your gardening skills - Join MMGA’s online

Winter Gardening Know-How Series 

November 5, 12, 19, and December 3, 2025 

To ensure everyone has a great educational experience, space is limited. Registration closes once we are full or November 2nd, 2025. Refunds for series cancellations must be requested by November 2nd, 2025. Refunds not available for individual missed classes. 

Have questions about how to register, class payment or other related topics? Please see answers to frequently asked questions here

or

Email us at KnowHow@MassMasterGardeners.org