2024 Advanced Education Conference Preview: Gardening in a Changing Climate

Joining me in this episode are AEC Co-Chairs Debbie Benbow and Cathi Lamoreaux who give us a sneak peek of the highly anticipated 2024 WSU Extension Master Gardener Advanced Education Conference.

Join us as we delve into the conference’s exciting lineup featuring the keynote speaker and in-depth sessions designed to enhance your gardening expertise.

This event is open to the public and is all online.

• Conference details at MG Learns
• Keynote Speaker Rebecca McMackin
• Conference Registration
• Soil Carbon Sequestration with Doug Collins
• Sponsorship details

[00:00:00] Erin Hoover: Welcome to the Evergreen Thumb, your go-to podcast for up-to-date research-based horticulture and environmental stewardship knowledge to help you grow and manage your garden, produced by Washington State University Extension Master Gardener Volunteers and brought to you by the Master Gardener Foundation of Washington State. 

[00:00:16] I’m your host, Erin Hoover, a WSU Extension Master Gardener since 2015 and a certified permaculture designer and modern homesteader. WSU Master Gardener volunteers are university-trained community educators who have been cultivating plants, people, and communities since 1973. Are you ready to grow? Let’s dig into today’s episode. 

[00:00:44] Welcome to episode 23 of the Evergreen Thumb. I have two guests today, Cathi Lamoureux and Debbie Benbow, who are co-chairs of the 2024 WSU Extension Master Gardener Advanced Education Conference. Kathy is a retired speech-language pathologist, having worked with adults for over 30 years. She was an educator with Eldergrow for four years after retirement. 

[00:01:07] She’s been a WSU Extension Master Gardener since 2008. She is also the past president of the Master Gardener Foundation of Spokane County, the current vice president of the Master Gardener Foundation of Washington State, and was the 2023 WSU Extension Master Gardener of the Year. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in Child Studies and a Master’s in Speech-Language Pathology, and she also holds a certificate in Horticultural Therapy. 

[00:01:34] My second guest, Debbie Benbow, is a Chelan-Douglas County Master Gardener volunteer, and she has been the director of two Advanced Education Conferences, in 2018 and 2023, and is currently the co-director for 2024. She uses her experience in graphic and website design for the state program and foundation, as well as for the Chelan-Douglas County program. 

[00:01:55] Debbie also works part-time as a Program Assistant to the WSU Master Gardener state program leader. Debbie, Cathi, welcome to the show. Thanks for joining me today.  

Thank you.  

Thank you.  

Cathi, why don’t you start telling us a little bit about yourself and as a Master Gardener?  

[00:02:11] Cathi Lamoreux: Uh, I’m a Master Gardener in Spokane. 

[00:02:14] I have been a Master Gardener since 2008. And so I’ve had my fingers in a lot of pots, but for the last three years, um, I’ve been working pretty hard on the AEC, uh, as well as, as a lot of the things that we do in our county, and I am currently the vice president of the Washington State Foundation.  

[00:02:42] Erin Hoover: Okay, Debbie, why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself? 

[00:02:45] Debbie Benbow: Well, I’ve been a Master Gardener since 2009 in Chelan-Douglas County. Um, I’ve been the director for, this is my third, um, Advanced Education Conference that I’ve directed. And I was also involved with two in-between.  

Cathi Lamoreux: So, you’ve been doing it for a while.  

Uh, yeah.  

[00:03:08] Erin Hoover: All right. So Debbie, why don’t you start off by telling us a bit about what the Advanced Education Conference is? 

[00:03:15] Debbie Benbow: Well, the WSU Extension Master Gardener Advanced Education Conference, which we refer to as AEC, um, to shorten it, it’s a partnership between the Master Gardener Foundation of Washington State and the WSU Extension Master Gardener Program. It’s offered as an an annual conference, and the goal is to provide communities with Extension Master Gardeners who can offer research-based, scientifically reported gardening advice, taking, taking that back to their communities. 

[00:03:53] And Master Gardeners also have the opportunity to earn continuing education credits, which are required.  

[00:04:00] Erin Hoover: So where and when will the AEC be held this year?  

[00:04:04] Debbie Benbow: This year’s conference is going to be virtual, it’s going to be held September 27th through the 28th, and we’re excited to be able to offer it to a wider audience of master gardeners, and to also bring it to the public to garden enthusiasts at an affordable cost. 

[00:04:25] Erin Hoover: So, what are some of the benefits of a virtual conference for this year?  

[00:04:29] Debbie Benbow: Um, well, for one, it’s affordable. It opens it up to a wider audience. More people are able to attend. There’s no cost for travel, food, or lodging. Um, over 36 classes and learning opportunities are available with approved CE credits. 

[00:04:48] And so that comes out to only $3.03 per class. No one has to miss a single class. All sessions will be recorded and made available for a limited time, uh, once the event concludes. And this is for registered participants. We have a, uh, an inspiring keynote presentation. And people can save $30 by registering by July 1st. 

[00:05:14] Erin Hoover: How is the conference structured, or how will it work as a virtual conference?  

[00:05:18] Debbie Benbow: Well, after people register, um, they’ll, they will get a, a link to the conference in September and they’ll be able to, to attend any classes they want during those days, but they’ll also have that opportunity to go back and attend any classes they missed. 

[00:05:41] Or even if they registered and couldn’t attend September 27th or 28th, they still have that opportunity to, to go in and, um, attend 36 classes plus the keynote. So, you don’t have to miss a thing.  

[00:05:56] Erin Hoover: And how long do you expect the recordings to be available?  

[00:05:59] Debbie Benbow: They will be available for 30 days following the conference, and there will be a few days in between that that we have to wait for the production company to make them available, but then they will be available till around the 1st of November. 

[00:06:15] Erin Hoover: So, are there any new features or differences other than being virtual compared to previous years that are, um, worth noting?  

[00:06:24] Debbie Benbow: We, you know, we were able to draw instructors from all over the country. So, we have a really top-notch lineup of speakers.  

[00:06:36] Erin Hoover: Tell us a bit about the theme for this year’s conference. 

[00:06:40] Cathi Lamoreux: The official theme is Gardening in a Changing Climate, and almost all the presentations, uh, can reference changing climate, no matter what their specific topic is. Uh, it’s a really strong statement. Creating sustainability and in our gardening practices has to take into account that the climate’s changing around us no matter where you live. 

[00:07:06] So, um, it’s not All, um, specifically about climate change, but there’s a link to climate, climate change in almost every presentation.  

[00:07:18] Erin Hoover: Are there specific session tracks that you can follow if you’re looking for a specific sub-theme?  

[00:07:26] Cathi Lamoreux: Yes. And yes. And no, I mean, you have to, you have to know how to do it.  

[00:07:33] We have five sessions, and each session has 2 live presentations and 3 recorded presentations. There’s 1 session that has an extra that’s where class number 36 comes in, but most of them are, you have 5 choices in each time frame and then, um, each, uh, topic will be listed on the schedule with its program priority symbol, uh, next to it. 

[00:08:02] So if you wanted to make sure you listened to all the soil health ones, or you wanted to listen to all the plant biodiversity ones or whatever, you could go through and pick. We, we purposely didn’t slot, um, duplicates into the sessions so that there’s a choice of at least five or six priorities in each session. 

[00:08:23] But you could, you could make a choice when you’re listening to the recorded sessions and going back and picking up others that are using the same priority.  

Erin Hoover: So Kathy, tell us about the keynote speaker.  

Cathi Lamoreux: I’m so super excited about the keynote speaker. I can hardly stand it. Um, Her name’s Rebecca McMackin, and I’ve been following her. 

[00:08:45] I think I found her during COVID, another plus of COVID that we grasp onto. But I listen, I’ve listened to her many times in, uh, recorded, uh, presentations and read about her. She’s really well, well respected in her field. So super excited. We tried to get her last year and she was studying.  

[00:09:10] She’d gone back to, to the university for a year, And so, she wasn’t accepting a lot of speaking engagements. So we’re super excited. And she calls herself an ecological horticulturist and she, uh, has a degree in landscape architecture. And she was the director of horticulture at Brooklyn Bridge Park in New York City for 11 years, and that is 85 acres of, of, uh, organic landscapes and they were all planted and managed to support wildlife. 

[00:09:44] So the birds and butterflies and, and the soil, like building up the soil, and it was built on pilings that were placed out in the river and were no longer being used and so they filled in and have built this garden. That just sounds fascinating, although I haven’t been there to see it yet. But like she says, if you can do that in the middle of New York City, you can do it anywhere. 

[00:10:11] And I think that’s just a fantastic message. She’s right now, she’s the Arboretum Curator at a place called Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx. And she cares for one of the best tree collections in New York City. She also, uh, has a new garden that she’s developing at the Brooklyn Museum, and, uh, she recently won the 2023 Pollinator Advocacy Award from the Pollinator Partnership. 

[00:10:40] So I, she just brings a wealth of information. This, this eye, um, for wildlife and, and, and organic and, and sustainable gardening and the ecological horticulture that she defines, I think it’s just such an appropriate message for, uh, for what, what we’re doing. We’re all trying to do right now, so I think she’s a person that you’re not going to want to miss. 

[00:11:11] Erin Hoover: Uh, I actually watched the TED talk that she gave, and that’s the only thing I’ve seen her do, but it was amazing. I was, it got me really excited about hearing her speak. Yeah.  

[00:11:22] Cathi Lamoreux: It was like goosebumps. It was just like, Oh, that’s what we’re going to get. Yeah. I was really excited.  

[00:11:29] Erin Hoover: So, I’ll put a link to that video in the show notes so people can kind of get a, an introduction to her. 

[00:11:35] So tell us some more about some of the other speakers that will be there this year.  

[00:11:39] Cathi Lamoreux: Well, I actually have a list of other speakers. We have a really good mix of experts in their field, outstanding experts in their field, as well as Master Gardener speakers, which is always a really nice thing thing to be able to do is to bring people who, who work their entire, you know, daily jobs, their entire career, sometimes in the field, uh, coming to give us the latest and greatest and, and also the master gardeners who are very aware of what, what we’re doing. 

[00:12:15] Master gardeners are focusing on concentrating on, and it’s nice when we have experts within our, our, our reach to get these people to come in and share their knowledge. So it’s really nice. But, um, some of the exciting speakers, we have Nick Bond, uh, speaking, and he is the Washington State climatologist, University of Washington professor, and he’s speaking on, uh, climate change in Washington State, past, present, and future. 

[00:12:45] So he’s going to really be a good person for setting the stage for getting, um, uh, sort of geared into thinking about what’s happened before us, what are, what’s going on right now in our world, and what do we need to be prepared for in the future, or help people be prepared for in the future that even may be beyond our lifetimes? 

[00:13:11] Um, we’ve got, uh, speakers on, um, on the native, on native plants. We have people that are comparing natives, cultivars, and perennials, which is always a hot topic. Um, when people are trying to go native to give up their native plants. Their favorite peony or their daylilies or whatever that may not quite fit into that groove. 

[00:13:38] And so I think it’s really nice when somebody can talk about how to, how to put all those things together and still be conscious of, of protecting the wildlife plant biodiversity. We have, um always a favorite is Mark Turner, and he is a Bellingham-based photographer and author. He has spoken at several of the AECs in the past few years. 

[00:14:07] He has a new book out and so he’s, and it’s on weeds. Um, and I think, I think that’s really cool. I, I heard of a, one of the Demonstration gardens actually has a weed bed so that people know what the weeds look like and I, that’s, that’s an incredible. I mean, how many times do you go to the plant clinic and, um, you know, and people bring you in a sample and say, what is this? 

[00:14:34] And. Is it a weed or is it something I should keep, you know, and they don’t know. So Mark’s going to do, um, a session on weeds. And the really nice thing about him is that he always does a really good job of combining the West side and the East side, um, when he speaks. So that’s very much appreciated. 

[00:14:54] We’ve got a couple of really good soil health speakers as well. Uh, Doug Collins, who’s a WSU, um, professor, and he’s going to talk about soil health in urban settings, um, as far as how it pertains to growing food. In urban settings, and he’s just gotten off of a sabbatical where he studied overseas as well as, uh, locally on urban soil. 

[00:15:19] So he’s going to do some, some comparisons, and the other person that is coming is a return speaker. If everybody, um, who’s listening, listened to, uh, James Cassidy. In 2021, when we did our first virtual conference, he did a rip-roaring session on soil health that has stuck with me to this day. Um, but he has agreed to speak and he’s, he’s just talking about soil, what it is, and how it works, but man, can he do that. 

[00:15:56] And so that part, that’s going to be really interesting. Let’s see. Oh, one of the other things that’s going to be. Uh, I think really interesting is we’re going to have a tour of a, um, uh, a local native plant nursery. It’s the Derby Canyon Native Nursery, and they have a demonstration landscape and they’re filming a tour. 

[00:16:22] And so we’re going to get to see what’s growing there and listen to the, to the owner, um, describe, um, how she plants and. Uh, what, what kind of plants really work in addition to that, she’s also giving a session on native plants. So that was going to, uh, uh, be like a twofer and that that should be really good. 

[00:16:49] The last person I wanted. To make sure I told you about is we have already secured our keynote speaker for next year, and his name is, is Larry Weaner, and he is also an ecological landscape designer, and he is going to actually join us for a session. So, he’s going to record a session this year on, just a minute, I got it written down here so I know the exact title. 

[00:17:21] Planning for the Unplanned, Integrating Ecological Restoration Techniques and Landscape Design. And so that’s going to be a setup for next year’s, uh, presentation. Keynote speaker. So that’s, that’s pretty exciting.  

[00:17:36] Erin Hoover: Uh, we do have a previous episode with Doug Collins talking about, uh, soil carbon sequestration. 

[00:17:41] So I can link to that too, so you can hear a little bit about him before the conference too. So, I guess the big question now is what does it cost to attend and how do we register?  

[00:17:54] Debbie Benbow: So registration is open. It’s early bird registration right now. So you can save $30 at $109, and then July 1st, the registration will go to the regular price of $139. 

[00:18:10] Erin Hoover: And register through the website?  

Debbie Benbow: Through the website, yes. www.mglearns.com.  

Cathi Lamoreux: Learns with an S. 

[00:18:18] Erin Hoover:  Alright, and we will link to that in the show notes as well, so everybody can find it. Is there anything else that you’d like to add about the Advanced Education Conference for 2024 or 2025?  

[00:18:31] Cathi Lamoreux: We’re working on sponsors; it always helps to have some sponsors, anybody listening, um, knows of a, of an organization or company that aligns with our mission. 

[00:18:44] We’d love to hear from them or themselves and anybody’s welcome. It’s open to the public. It’s not just for Master Gardeners. So you can sign up and, and listen to all the great presentations and the master gardeners are going to listen too, and it’s open to everybody, anybody who, where this podcast reaches all over the country, Canada, any place in the world. 

[00:19:14] That you’re listening. It’s, that’s the, the beauty of virtual programming is that we can come right into your house, no matter where you live.  

[00:19:24] Erin Hoover: Will the award ceremony be open to the public?  

[00:19:28] Cathi Lamoreux: I was gonna, I was gonna mention that people. Always, you know, meetings aren’t the top of our list when we go to a conference, but, um, we always hold the state foundation’s annual meeting at the conference and because it’s virtual, the meeting itself will also be virtual. 

[00:19:48] So that is open to master gardeners. And so, the, the conference will open on Friday morning with the annual meeting and the award ceremony all rolled into one, so they won’t miss that part. And so there will be a separate link. It will go out to all master gardeners. Uh, and so you don’t have to register for the conference in order to attend the annual meeting or the award ceremony, which, um, doesn’t happen when you have a, a conference, uh, in person; then only the people that are at the conference attend those meetings. 

[00:20:26] So that’s, that’s kind of nice too. You can, you can do that without registering. And then there will be a separate link. That you’ll have to log off and then everybody will get the link for all the presentations. That’s the way the conference starts at 9 o’clock in the morning on Friday morning. We’ll have an annual meeting. 

[00:20:46] All right.  

[00:20:47] Erin Hoover: Any final thoughts about the conference? I know we’re still looking for a chair for the 2025 conference. If you’re a master gardener and would like to be involved, we are always looking for people.  

[00:21:02] Cathi Lamoreux: And there’s, there’s some really good ideas floating around for about format. Uh, it’s pretty difficult to host an in-person conference these days for anybody, not just for master gardeners, but for any organizations, uh, Hotel costs and transportation costs of have really skyrocketed. 

[00:21:22] Um, and so the anticipation is that 2025 will also be virtual. We’d like to mix it up a little bit and do some regional settings as far as where you can view it. And so we’re going to be reaching out to, um, hopefully a team of, um, Uh, master gardeners throughout the state in different parts of the state that would get together as a, as a team, uh, to plan 2025. 

[00:21:51] So if that sounds interesting, it’s not something you’d have to do on your own, but let us know, and Debbie and I have been at this for a few years and, um, we’d like a break, but we’re not going anywhere. So our institutional knowledge will still be available to, to help people get started and make decisions. 

[00:22:12] All right.  

[00:22:13] Erin Hoover: Any last thoughts? 

[00:22:13] Cathi Lamoreux:  No, just thanks for having us on and, and register for the conference. It’s going to be, it’s going to be fun. And there’s going to be a lot, a lot of information.   

[00:22:28] Erin Hoover: It sounds like a lot. 36 sessions, is that correct?  

[00:22:29] Cathi Lamoreux: 30, 36 plus the keynote. Plus the keynote. 37 if you count the keynote. 

[00:22:35] Erin Hoover: So it’s a lot of knowledge.  

[00:22:38] Debbie Benbow: Register and tell your friends. 

[00:22:38] Erin Hoover: Yeah. Thank you for joining us on this episode of The Evergreen Thumb, brought to you by the WSU Extension Master Gardener Program volunteers and sponsored by the Master Gardener Foundation of Washington State. We hope that today’s discussion has inspired and equipped you with valuable insights to nurture your garden. 

[00:22:58] The Master Gardener Foundation of Washington State is a nonprofit organization whose primary purpose is to provide unifying support and advocacy. For WSU Extension Master Gardener programs throughout Washington State. To support the Master Gardener Foundation of Washington State, visit www.mastergardenerfoundation.org/donate/. 

[00:23:18]  Whether you’re an experienced Master Gardener or just starting out, the WSU Extension Master Gardener program is here to support you every step of the way. WSU Extension Master Gardeners empower and sustain diverse communities with relevant, unbiased, research-based horticulture education. 

[00:23:37] Reach out to your local WSU Extension office to connect with Master Gardeners and tap into a wealth of resources that can help you achieve gardening success. To learn more about the program or how to become a Master Gardener, visit mastergardener.wsu.edu/get-involved/. If you enjoyed today’s episode and want to stay connected with us, be sure to subscribe to future episodes filled with expert tips, fascinating stories, and practical advice. 

[00:24:03] Don’t forget to leave a review and share it with fellow gardeners to spread the joy of gardening. Questions or comments to be addressed in future episodes can be sent to hello@theEvergreenThumb.com. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed by guests of this podcast are their own and do not imply endorsement by Washington State University or the Master Gardener Foundation of Washington State.