{This course will not be available until January 2026. If you want to elevate your gardening skills before then, you can register for the Home Horticulture Summer option.}
If you’re looking for a comprehensive, science-based, horticulture and gardening essentials course, our Home Horticulture Certificate could be for you! Grow your gardening knowledge, whether you’re a beginner or an experienced gardener.
There are no course prerequisites, although a basic knowledge of plants is helpful.
In this 13-week non-credit course, you will receive science-based training drawn from the classes that OSU Extension Master Gardener volunteers take in Oregon. Moderated by a skilled instructor, this course provides an exceptional experience that will help your garden thrive.
NOTE: Though this course duplicates some of the training Oregon Master Gardener volunteers receive, this Certificate of Home Horticulture class will not lead to Master Gardener Certification.
The Home Horticulture Basic Training course is designed for anyone who wants to learn more about the effective and sustainable management of their home horticultural landscape.
This is one of our most popular courses. By the end of the program, you will know about:
For each topic, you will have the chance to learn and interact with the instructor and your classmates via:
Upon successful completion of the online course, you will receive a digital Certificate of Home Horticulture.
NOTE: Though this course duplicates some of the training Oregon Master Gardener volunteers receive, this Certificate of Home Horticulture will not lead to Master Gardener Certification.
This program is open to all. You don't have to be an OSU student or even live in Oregon.
Many of the modules, such as Botany Basics, Soils and Fertilizers, Intro to Entomology, Pesticide Safety and more are applicable anywhere. Others that are more plant-oriented use mostly western Oregon examples, although there is still plenty of basic, essential information. Western Oregon is a temperate, zone 8, dry-summer, wet-winter region. We include some information for dryer regions such as central Oregon as well.
If you live in a climate that is extremely different from western Oregon, most of the topics will still be useful, but you are encouraged to supplement the course with local information as well.
"The Home Horticulture course was my first experience with online learning and it was great! There’s so much information in the course content and the instructor was so accessible! The home horticulture program is teaching me how to maintain my garden and I can use this knowledge to help family and friends.” ~ Cara A.
If you live in Oregon and are interested in becoming an OSU Extension Master Gardener Volunteer, visit this website https://extension.oregonstate.edu/mg to find out about in-person trainings.
Targeted Gardening Short Course Series
If you do not need or desire the full certificate course, or only want to study certain topics, you might be interested in the on-demand Gardening Short Course Series, which pulls from sections of the Home Horticulture Online program.
Free Master Gardener eBook
If you'd like to learn more about being a Master Gardener volunteer and what it entails, you can read more in this free 24-page eBook "An Introduction to Being a Master Gardener Volunteer."
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Enjoy peace of mind with our risk-free guarantee on online instructor-led courses.“Great class. You get out of it what you put into it. My garden is thriving. Practical information that lasts a lifetime.”
I learned a lot about the PNW flora, conifers and how to better amend my soil. The instructor was great, very responsive. I enjoyed the practical requirements. If you’re interested in learning about the diversity of this region, and how to better take care of plants, then absolutely I would recommend the program.
I now have a new network and I've helped people learn how to garden without chemicals. After the course, I've helped grade school kids to like worms by teaching a class in 5th and 6th grade. I loved it all.
The convenience of taking the class online was priceless. I was concerned I'd have enough time to put into the course given my busy schedule, but I was able to successfully complete the course working two jobs, plus the support of my full-time employer who let me change my lunch schedule to allow time to study. It was a great accomplishment for me and proved to me I can do whatever I put my mind to doing. I learned new skills and concepts and have a ton of resource material to refer back to as needed. I can't speak highly enough about the experience overall.
I love gardening and wanted to meet more people that share my passion. Through this program, I met some wonderful people - actually, I met more of my neighbors through this program! The people I worked with were so interesting! Learning online was wonderful for someone working full time. I hope to see more young people and will encourage others to try this program.
I learned a ton and yields are up. I now have a scientific approach to organic food production. I enjoyed learning botany, soils, entomology and herbicides & pesticides. It was rigorous, but fun.
This program enhances gardening knowledge, which is important because so many people have gardens/yards and feel frustrated about how to take care of it. My favorite part were the discussions and learning how to approach specific problems and hearing from others on what NOT to do, or from others’ bad experiences.
I incorporated what I learned in teaching the general public about gardening and it greatly enhanced my classes. I enjoyed the online flexibility, quality instructors, and the ability to revisit lectures via weblink. I would recommend this program due to the benefits mentioned above, plus the quality, research-based information. OSU made online learning easy and I highly value the quality content and instructors.
This was something I always wanted to do. The daytime class didn’t work for me because of work. After taking the class, I was able to step into the Plant Clinic and stay with it. I loved the diagnostic section and the online flexibility for a working person. I had a great experience and would do it again.
I wanted to be a better gardener. The course was a great education on all aspects of gardening. This summer I helped a work-colleague turn her front yard into a meadow of wildflowers with knowledge I learned. I visited it recently and it's beautiful!
I learned a lot and met great people and got involved in the community. The time involved compared to the amount I learned was well worth it. A lot of what I learned involved practices that everyone should know, IPM, when and how to use a pesticide if necessary, safe practices that help Mother Earth, etc. It was a great and thorough program.
I am still having a great time reviewing all the lectures as this is all new to me and a great challenge to learn. I especially want to thank Signe Dangler for her lectures that I loved. They are so easy to listen to. Her comments to all of us on our assignments are so informative. I am amazed that she is so good and that she is so thorough to read through all the assignments and provide specific feedback. All the knowledge that she has repeated to her in the small assignment efforts that we present to her could be so boring and frustrating. The way she corrects them in such a friendly personalized way makes us feel as if a dear friend guided and corrected us in a positive discussion.
“Great class. You get out of it what you put into it. My garden is thriving. Practical information that lasts a lifetime.”
I learned a lot about the PNW flora, conifers and how to better amend my soil. The instructor was great, very responsive. I enjoyed the practical requirements. If you’re interested in learning about the diversity of this region, and how to better take care of plants, then absolutely I would recommend the program.
I now have a new network and I've helped people learn how to garden without chemicals. After the course, I've helped grade school kids to like worms by teaching a class in 5th and 6th grade. I loved it all.
The convenience of taking the class online was priceless. I was concerned I'd have enough time to put into the course given my busy schedule, but I was able to successfully complete the course working two jobs, plus the support of my full-time employer who let me change my lunch schedule to allow time to study. It was a great accomplishment for me and proved to me I can do whatever I put my mind to doing. I learned new skills and concepts and have a ton of resource material to refer back to as needed. I can't speak highly enough about the experience overall.
I love gardening and wanted to meet more people that share my passion. Through this program, I met some wonderful people - actually, I met more of my neighbors through this program! The people I worked with were so interesting! Learning online was wonderful for someone working full time. I hope to see more young people and will encourage others to try this program.
I learned a ton and yields are up. I now have a scientific approach to organic food production. I enjoyed learning botany, soils, entomology and herbicides & pesticides. It was rigorous, but fun.
This program enhances gardening knowledge, which is important because so many people have gardens/yards and feel frustrated about how to take care of it. My favorite part were the discussions and learning how to approach specific problems and hearing from others on what NOT to do, or from others’ bad experiences.
I incorporated what I learned in teaching the general public about gardening and it greatly enhanced my classes. I enjoyed the online flexibility, quality instructors, and the ability to revisit lectures via weblink. I would recommend this program due to the benefits mentioned above, plus the quality, research-based information. OSU made online learning easy and I highly value the quality content and instructors.
This was something I always wanted to do. The daytime class didn’t work for me because of work. After taking the class, I was able to step into the Plant Clinic and stay with it. I loved the diagnostic section and the online flexibility for a working person. I had a great experience and would do it again.
I wanted to be a better gardener. The course was a great education on all aspects of gardening. This summer I helped a work-colleague turn her front yard into a meadow of wildflowers with knowledge I learned. I visited it recently and it's beautiful!
I learned a lot and met great people and got involved in the community. The time involved compared to the amount I learned was well worth it. A lot of what I learned involved practices that everyone should know, IPM, when and how to use a pesticide if necessary, safe practices that help Mother Earth, etc. It was a great and thorough program.
I am still having a great time reviewing all the lectures as this is all new to me and a great challenge to learn. I especially want to thank Signe Dangler for her lectures that I loved. They are so easy to listen to. Her comments to all of us on our assignments are so informative. I am amazed that she is so good and that she is so thorough to read through all the assignments and provide specific feedback. All the knowledge that she has repeated to her in the small assignment efforts that we present to her could be so boring and frustrating. The way she corrects them in such a friendly personalized way makes us feel as if a dear friend guided and corrected us in a positive discussion.
“Great class. You get out of it what you put into it. My garden is thriving. Practical information that lasts a lifetime.”
Signe Danler is a veteran Master Gardener and landscape designer with a Masters of Ag degree in Horticulture. In the Master Gardener Online program, she uses her experience and training in gardening, urban forestry and ecological landscaping to communicate about and promote sustainable gardening and landscaping practices.
Gail Langellotto, OSU Professor and Guest Home Horticulture Instructor. Gail has a M.S. and Ph.D. in entomology, and has published research on topics as diverse as the costs of starting and maintaining a vegetable garden, pollinator-friendly gardens, and the benefits of gardening to healthy eating. Her OSU Extension Service and outreach efforts are focused on communicating research-backed management practices to home gardeners. For the online Master Gardener and urban agriculture PACE courses, she supervises overall course development, and reviews and contributes to course content.
Jay Pscheidt, OSU Professor and Guest Home Horticulture Instructor. Jay received his Ph.D. in Plant Pathology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1985. Since 1988 he has been a professor at Oregon State University as an Extension Plant Pathology Specialist. His principal duties are to lead a statewide extension program related to the diagnosis and management of diseases of all fruit, nut, and ornamental/nursery crops. He is also co-editor of regional publication The Pacific Northwest Plant Disease Management Handbook.
Mykl grew up in a military family and has traveled around the globe. He started down his agricultural path after picking the makings of a salad directly into a bowl while standing within a greenhouse in his backyard in Colorado.
Mykl came to the Pacific Northwest to enter the agricultural sector and really immerse himself in an environment of plant growth. . He spent a handful of years at Oregon State University to retrain in a new undergraduate degree so he could finish with a Master’s of Horticulture. He's worked on a handful of farms and tended ever-larger gardens, often on someone else's land. He is now creating and teaching courses at OSU as the Instructor of Urban Agriculture.
In addition to his work for OSU's certificate program in urban agriculture, he is experimenting with a system to convert food waste into insect protein. Outside the university, Mykl gardens when he can and runs a number of nutrient cycling experiments.
