photography by Georgianna Lane/Garden Photo World/Corbis
Gardening, like cooking, is often a learn-by-failure pursuit. It’s also, like jazz, kind of an apprenticeship system—many longtime gardeners love sharing tips with rookies. If you don’t have a gardening mentor and want to keep any (often expensive) gardening failures to a minimum, there are dozens of classes available locally. Call first to check prices, times, and schedules.
Bowood Farms
4605 Olive, 314-454-6868, bowoodfarms.com
Bowood Farms’ Central West End location sells annuals, perennials, edibles, trees, and bushes, as well as seeds, soaps, high-end gardening implements, and even eco-friendly nail polishes from butter LONDON. It also offers classes on just about every
gardening topic imaginable—recent classes include Pruning 101 and Gardening Up: Going Vertical in Urban Spaces With Vines. And Bowood has given tutorials on niche topics, such as terrariums, bonsai, and foraging.
Gateway Greening
3871 Bell, 314-588-9600 x104, gatewaygreening.org
The Bell Demonstration Garden is Gateway Greening’s “outdoor office,” and it’s open from 9 a.m. to noon every Saturday in March through October. Swing by to attend workshops on edible food crops, meet the 15 chickens in the Community Coop, borrow tools, or, on May 3 and 4, pick up some plants for your yard at the Great Perennial Divide.
Hillermann Nursery & Florist
2601 E. Fifth, Washington, 636-239-6729, hillermann.com
This nursery will keep you busy even in the winter months, with bird-watching groups, garden-themed Pinterest parties, and a station where you can create little fairy gardens and terrariums or just repot your houseplants. During the growing season, classes are even more varied, including—maybe coolest of all—classes for those who want to throw, glaze, and fire their own ceramic flowerpots in Hillermann’s on-site pottery studio.
Missouri Botanical Garden
4344 Shaw, 314-577-5100, missouribotanicalgarden.org
It’s not shocking that the garden offers the widest range of classes available in the area—and for every age group, all year round. Topics include growing roses, edging your garden, planting berries, identifying trees, helping herbs thrive, making leis from backyard flowers, building rain barrels, choosing shrubs, placing plants, and the quintessentially St. Louis “Rescue Your Zoysia!” Check out the native plant classes through Shaw Nature Reserve, too.
Sandy’s Back Porch
2004 West, Belleville, Ill., 618-235-2004, sandysbackporch.com
Sandy Richter and her staff are avid gardeners, so their recommendations for plants or soil amendments—such as eco-friendly mushroom compost—are tried and sound. Sandy’s also holds fun and informative classes on culinary herbs, planting trees, and creating curb appeal by putting the right plant in the right place in your front yard.
Sappington Garden Shop
11530 Gravois, 314-843-4700, sappingtongardenshop.com
This nursery’s ongoing gardening and landscaping classes are free and taught by horticulture instructors from local universities, as well as industry experts. Past offerings include Hostas, Here We Come; Nature’s Blooming Beauties; and Herb Gardening: Growing, Harvesting, Preserving, and Using.
Sherwood’s Forest Nursery and Garden Center
2651 Barrett Station, Manchester, 314-966-0028, sherwoods-forest.com
Looking for an obscure type of magnolia? This West County garden center is the place to go. Sherwood’s also rocks social media, with a Facebook page overflowing with informative articles—and hilarious pictures of visitors donning a green Robin Hood hat in an allusion to the nursery’s namesake. Sherwood’s Forest also pays special attention to its Children’s Garden Club, which introduces kids to plants and nature.
Sugar Creek Gardens
1011 N. Woodlawn, 314-965-3070, sugarcreekgardens.com
This nursery’s calendar has something for kids, teens, total beginners, “the out-of-control hobbyist,” and master gardeners alike. Classes offered so far this season have included Gardening 101, Shrubs and Perennials for Containers, and Gardening Under Trees. In May, learn how to keep rabbits and deer out of your garden, as well as how to grow truly mind-blowing hydrangeas.
University of Illinois Extension
901 Illinois, Waterloo, Ill., 618-939-3434, extension.illinois.edu/madisonstclair
Although the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s cooperative extension network attends mainly to those in the business of farming, it also offers robust support and programming for home gardeners, including classes on gardening, nutrition, cooking, health, and ecology. Upcoming classes for gardeners include a workshop about tomatoes and Don’t Doubt the Drought, which offers solutions for keeping landscape plants healthy when rain is scarce.
University of Missouri St. Charles County Extension Center
260 Brown, St. Peters, 636-970-3000, extension.missouri.edu/stcharles
This office teaches several classes a month that cover a wide range of topics: growing grapes (and properly pruning them), composting, keeping fruit trees in residential yards, lawn care, “lasagna” gardening, building accessible garden beds, and everything you need to know about growing healthy roses.
University of Missouri Extension of St. Louis County
10650 Gateway, 314-400-2115, extension.missouri.edu/stlouis
The St. Louis County extension office offers soil testing, an important service for those gardening in urban areas, where soil is frequently contaminated with lead. The extension’s garden classes tend to focus on food crops—one of its spring staples is Vegetable Gardening for Beginners—but it also has units for master gardeners, as well as courses on cooking and canning.
