Enjoy More Flowers With Spring Gardening Classes After-Hours

Tuesday, Mar. 14, 2023

Enhance your gardening skills with tips from Master Gardeners! 

WICHITA — More than just April showers will help bring May flowers to Wichita area gardens this spring. Throughout the month of April, K-State Research & Extension – Sedgwick County and the Wichita Public Library are partnering together to offer free gardening classes to help local gardeners develop their green thumb in 2023. 

The 2023 Spring Gardening Series will present five weeks of evening classes, covering a variety of gardening topics. The free classes are being offered both in person and online via Zoom, April 4th through May 4th. On Tuesdays, the classes will be held in-person at the Library’s Alford Branch from 6:00-7:30 p.m., and on Thursdays, the same presentation will be delivered live, online via Zoom, also from 6:00-7:30 p.m.  A new topic will be covered each week.   

Class schedule and topics:

• April 4th & 6th:  Basic Herb Gardening: Growing & Preserving Herbs 
  There are many ways to successfully grow herbs in Kansas, including in containers or planted in the ground.  Join Extension Master Gardener Lisa LaRue as she shares which herbs are easiest to grow in our area.  Learn not only tips for growing successful herbs, but how to preserve the bountiful summer herb harvest so that you can enjoy your herbs year-round.
• April 11th & 13th:  Homegrown Tomatoes
  Learn about all aspects of successfully growing tomatoes in your own home garden in this presentation.  Extension Master Gardener Donna Wise will walk you through the entire process from selecting what kind of tomatoes to grow (hybrid vs heirloom), plant, care, harvest, and the most common mistakes to avoid along the way.  Discover how to have not only healthy plants, but a bountiful harvest too.
• April 18th & 20th:  Gardening for All Abilities:  Accessible Gardening
  Accessible gardening is a concept of adapting tools and techniques to fit the needs of people of various levels of physical ability, in order to help make gardening a lifetime activity.  Extension Master Gardener Kevin Madden will present alternative ways to minimize the physical limitation challenges for people of all ages who want to enjoy the many benefits derived from gardening.  
• April 25th & 27th:  Loving the Bees Means Nurturing All the Pollinators
  Learn how to think of your garden and landscape as an ecosystem. Extension Master Gardener Dennice Craig will teach you how to create a layered habitat in which native bees and numerous other pollinators can flourish.  You will be surprised by the number of amazing insects you will be able to attract to your garden!
• May 2nd & 4th:  Gardening with Nature:  Native Plants & Grasses
  Ornamental grasses and native perennials grow quite vigorously in our climate, and are a great way to add color, form, and texture to our gardens.  Extension Master Gardener Laura Knight will share how these plants can save you water, work, and money.  Learn how to incorporate these plants into any garden style in order to provide beauty, seasonality, and fullness, while also increasing the biodiversity of your garden.  

All classes are free, but registration is required. Register online through the events calendar on the Wichita Public Library's website, or by calling 316-261-8500. Registration is currently open for all classes.  

Following each presentation, the recordings will be available on the Wichita Public Library's YouTube channel. 

The classes are a joint project of the K-State Research & Extension - Sedgwick County Extension Master Gardener Volunteer program and the Wichita Public Library.