Saturdays — June 12th, 19th, and 26th from 10am to 12pm
Introduction to Sustainable Gardening is a FREE, online three-part workshop series designed to help you transform your backyard into a thriving, resilient garden. Learn what plants are adapted to San Francisco’s unique coastal climate and grow without the need for toxic pesticides or large amounts of water. This course will focus on native and drought-tolerant ornamental gardens, but will cover broad topics that can also apply to vegetable gardening.
This event is FREE due to the generous support of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission. Please consider donating to us if you would like to support the garden and future public programming. Donate here! www.gardenfortheenvironment.org/donate
The three workshop sessions will incorporate compelling lectures, videos, breakout discussion sessions, observational exercises, documents, and question-and-answer time to make them engaging and informative.
The series will take place on the Zoom video meeting platform — https://zoom.us/ Login information will be sent out upon registration.
SERIES SUMMARY:
Part I: Sustainable Garden Design This workshop will teach you how to design a beautiful, functional, and thriving home garden space. San Francisco urban gardens come with all sorts of unique challenges (fog, wind, steep hillsides, sandy soil) and it can be difficult to know where to start. Ellyn will provide information to help you evaluate and design garden spaces and choose plants to match the space, a principle called “Right Plant, Right Place”.
Part II: Water-Wise Gardening
This workshop will take a more detailed look at the many beautiful plants that grow well in San Francisco and how you can care for them without using lots of water. Even with San Francisco’s dry and foggy summers, there is an amazing palate of climate-appropriate plants that will thrive here with little or no summer water so that you can conserve water and save on your bill. You’ll also learn how to water your plants properly and group them by similar water needs to help them reach their full potential.
Part III: Organic Pest Control
Learn how a healthy and biodiverse garden can thrive without the use of pesticides. Ellyn will discuss the notion that most plant health problems are caused by poor growing conditions or improper planting, and that pests and diseases may be secondary problems. Plant health care involves a combination of strategies including monitoring, and you’ll learn strategies to attract beneficial insects, and keep pests, diseases, and weeds at bay naturally.
Instructors:
Ellyn Shea (Sessions 1 and 2) is a longtime Bay Area gardener, garden coach, Certified Arborist, consultant, and educator. She is a longtime Garden for the Environment teacher and supporter and shares her extensive gardening knowledge in this workshop series.
Suzanne Bontempo (Session 3) joined GFE in 2013. An environmental educator and Integrated Pest Manamgement (IPM) advocate, Suzanne, owner of Plant Harmony and program manager for Our Water Our World, was recognized for excellence in her field in winning the 2013 IPM Innovators Award. Suzanne has worked in the horticulture industry for 20 years in a variety of capacities with landscape contractors, leading garden maintenance teams, and in Retail Nursery Management. Suzanne loves plants, loves nature, and loves sharing any information she can to help others have success in their gardens.
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