(Radio Iowa) – Iowa State University Extension is going to hold its home gardening webinar series again in January. Alicia Herzog leads the Master Gardener Program and the webinar series. “I really want it to be open to anyone who is interested in gardening, so I try my best to make it that way. Try to make it very accessible. I allow people to join on zoom or on Facebook live,” she says. Herzog says there are 10 different topics and she normally likes themes. ” This year was a little bit harder because I do look at past participant data about what topics people are wanting to see in the upcoming year and they didn’t fit as nicely into little theme boxes as I would normally like them to,” she says. Herzog says she likes the variety they will present.

“So they’re going to be a few sessions where we talk about gardening for wildlife, using native plants, pollinator gardens kind of in that realm, more of that conservation and gardening, meeting that realm. Then we’ll also have some that are very specific about vegetables and edibles,” Herzog says. She says one will focus on recommended vegetable cultivars for Iowa, specifically about growing garlic. She says they also will cover issues of what you plant in and where. “Soil health monitoring and testing, growing specialty cut flowers. And then we always do a few that are about design and kind of helping people be creative with how they design their spaces,” she says. Herzog says you can pick and chose topics.

“People don’t have to sign up for all of them, if there are only certain ones that are of interest to them, that’s fine,” she says. “If they’re interested in all of them, that’s fine as well. We would love to have people join us for all ten sessions, but it’s not required,” Herzog says. The Home Gardening Webinars will be Thursday evenings from 6–7 p-m central time from January 8th through March 12 th. Go to the Iowa State University Extension website to register.

Here’s the full webinar schedule:

• January 8: Gardening for Wildlife
• January 15: Recommended Vegetable Cultivars for Iowa
• January 22: Growing Great Garlic
• January 29: Right Perennial, Right Place
• February 5: Green Roofs for Home Gardeners
• February 12: Do-it-Yourself Soil Health Monitoring for Your Garden
• February 19: Why Choose Native Trees and Shrubs?
• February 26: Growing Specialty Cut Flowers in Iowa
• March 5: From Sight to Scent – Selecting Species for Sensory Spaces
• March 12: A Place for Pollinators