By: Andrew Jeffers, Greenville County Horticulture Agent
The 2025 Master Gardener class brought together 28 participants for a fall season of hands-on, research-based learning focused on real problems from Upstate yards and landscapes. Each Tuesday, the cohort moved from fundamentals to field application—building a shared language around soils and plant nutrition, plant physiology, integrated pest management, plant pathology, nuisance wildlife, and diagnosing plant problems.
Learning didn’t stay in the classroom. The group practiced sample collection and diagnosis, compared notes on “look-alike” issues, and took targeted site visits that connected teaching to practice—so what they learned in the morning showed up in better decisions that afternoon. A simple capstone kept it practical: every participant chose a real landscape issue, used credible (.edu) sources to identify causes, and outlined a step-by-step solution to share with the class.
By graduation, the cohort had what they came for: confidence to identify before treating, clearer judgment about when (and when not) to use pesticides, and a toolkit for communicating recommendations to neighbors, clients, and community groups. The next step is service—bringing those skills to help desks, demonstration gardens, and local outreach events across Greenville County.
