Anacortes Senior College

This three-week course will be provided by three instructors who are WSU-Skagit County Extension Master Gardeners

1. Steve Schanen - Basic Botany to Help You Know and Understand Your Plants - Learn about the history of plants and how the oldest plants are still with us. Learn about flowers and how the flowering plants are organized. Learn about some plant families and how knowledge of plant families will help you in the garden.

Steve is a high school teacher in Oak Harbor and former native plant nursery owner as well as a WSU-Skagit County Extension Master Gardener.

2. Kelly Maupin - Seed to Salad – This is a two-part session:

(1) From Seed to Maturity Jump Start Your Garden with Winter Sowing - You will learn the easy, low-cost seed starting method where seeds are sown in containers outdoors from December through April. This technique uses the natural freezing and thawing cycles to stratify seeds if needed, and the containers act as mini-greenhouses promoting germination when the time is right.

(2) Growing Tomatoes - Learn the Skagit County Master Gardeners method for growing beautiful tomato plants & produce. This class will include the fundamentals of germination, seedling growing methods and tools, common problems facing tomato growers and how to avoid them, the different types of tomatoes, and choosing the right tomato for our region.

3. Virgene Link-New - Rose Care and Pruning - Do you sometimes wonder how to properly care for and prune your roses? It can be a challenge to grow roses well in Skagit County. Expert Virgene Link-New will cover planting, pruning, fertilizing, watering, and pest & disease management for a variety of rose types in this talk.

Virgene is a long-time chairman of the Rose Garden at the Master Garden Discovery Garden.

Course Facilitator: Anita Johnson – WSU-Skagit County Extension Master Gardener