Caroln,

I'm a new gardener in Ferndale and looking for ways to learn more. Can you direct me in this area?

Basically Master Gardeners are a group of people who pay to take a course through MSU through a county extension office, pass a test, and do volunteer time to become a 'certified master gardener'. Then every year they must take more classes and do more volunteer hours. I became a MG in 1980 in MI and have seen several changes in their program. The information they give out now is more detailed and keeping up with the current bug/disease info. Since I moved to Washteaw County 3 years ago and developed other interests, I have let my volunteer hours lapse, so I must retake the course to become recertified again.
Anyone from Wayne County? I was a ulmni there for many years and have heard about the current situation-MSU seems unfair to me.

Hi Tim,

I am starting the Master Gardener program in Clinton Township on September 7th. For more information you can reach them at 586.469.6440. The program is through MSU. The class was $230 and runs from September 7th-November 16th.

Deb

I plan to take the clinton class starting in January where they will be having evening classes on Wend nights. I have been saving up for the class for a while. Can't wait it will be fun to learn about gardening while it is snowing outside.

Deb, let me know how your class goes.

Wayne County Here

Planning on taking MG classes next year. Chris MI, please tell me about the current situation you are referring to.
Thanx so much.

For gardeners near Washtenaw County, Michigan, check out my website of gardening events. Also feel free to send info on your events.

Here is a link that might be useful: Gardening Events in and around Ann Arbor, MI

In Wayne Co, here is the hear-say as I understand it. First the background. It is the metro area of Detroit. They require 2x the hours of other counties in MI-I don't know why. I started to drop from the group because Wayne County's group would not count anything except activities that they sponsored or orgaized-this was later changed. There is a large ulmni in the group, which works at one of the large stores (used to be Franks). the $ (minimum wage) went to the Club treasurery----the workers, who were suppose to only give advice and not actually help put plants into people's cars, earned their hours. They also maintained a green house and sold alot of plants for $. Well, MSU decided that since the Wayne county group had so much money in their account, (they use it to pay for wonderful speakers for their monthly meetings) that they should send more money than the other groups back to MSU to help fund the program. Hey, why should they give more money just because they worked harder and had more manpower than smaller extension groups--this is not welfare. Remember the hype of the govenor who talked about cutting off all funding for the Extension offices. Well, the County/City officers were threatening the same thing recently, but also changed their minds. I don't have more details, but am sure other people can give us the correct info. I hope politics don't mess up a good thing like the Master Gardener program.

There appears to be misinformation about the Michigan State University Master Gardener Volunteer program on this forum. To receive the correct information, contact the county MG coordinator in your county or contact the state MG office at mg@msu.edu

Here is a link that might be useful: Michigan State MG Volunteer Program

I just graduated on Jan3, 2005 from master gardening. I found out there is alot of ways to get the hours you need. There is a major clean up going on in some flower beds in the Wexford area. I am one of the volenteers and finding that I only have 5 hours to complete my 40 hours. I am going to keep working on this project and maybe I can get an extra 50 to become an Advanced master gardener by the time this year is up. Wish me luck
Gardenmaker79

I am surprised to read on this forum that one person must take the MG course again in order to get recertified. I would think all they needed to do was fulfill the required volunteer hours.
The next person says with an extra 50 volunteer hours they can become an Advanced Master Gardener. Our Advanced MG status is based on advanced training not volunteer hours.

Eddie,
You also have to do another 25 hours of advanced training on top of the volunteer hours.

First of all I'd like to remind everyone that to be a certified Master Gardener and not just a student who took classes your goal is to go out and volunteer and EDUCATE others, in other words SHARE your knowledge. You retake the course if there is any length of time since you were certified because the knowledge base continuously changes.
It has been a wonderful experience to open the possibilities to adults and children alike as we garden together. I do know that there have been variable within the program but I do believe that these are being worked out. Congrats to those of you just starting out and keep a positive attitude as you get your hands dirty.