Do you need a speaker or workshop facilitator for your organization or event? Our Master Gardeners educate on ecological gardening practices, sharing their deep horticultural knowledge of soils, plants and ecosystems to inspire with possibilities of what your space could become.

A broad range of topics is listed below. If you don’t see one you’re interested in, let us know – we’re always looking for new ideas!

While our speakers don’t charge for their services, we do ask for an honorarium payable to 1000 Islands Master Gardeners. The honorarium supports our educational work. A mileage fee may also be payable to the speaker.

To request a speaker, contact us.

Wildscaping: Landscaping with lawn alternatives

• The Case for Native Plants: A concise, evidence-based presentation showing how everyday garden choices directly affect birds, pollinators, and local ecosystems. Drawing on research by Doug Tallamy, it explains why native plants are vital to food webs and illustrates, through clear examples and practical guidance, how gardeners can make meaningful changes at home and become part of a hopeful solution for nature.
• Natives and nativars: Do our plant choices at the nursery matter?  The number of dramatic, native cultivars has exploded with garden centres offering selections like red yarrow, double coneflowers, and red leaved shrubs like elderberries. How do we choose between them to provide the maximum benefit to local wildlife?
• Wildscaping: a new approach to gardening in a changing climate: With climate change, our perspective on what a garden should be and what we like to grow in it has to change. Our weather is becoming more variable with wetter springs, drier summers, colder winters and more extreme storms. Learn how to adapt your gardening style for a changing climate, drawing inspiration from our local landscapes and indigenous flora to create naturalistic and sustainable gardens.
• My front yard Little Forest: My front yard Little Forest is an ever changing conversation with the land. I designed a little. Squirrels and birds designed a lot. I negotiated with the land. Serendipity brings in something new. A harsh winter brings death. Wild plants otherwise known as weeds are often welcomed when they show up on their own. Nursery plants that turn out to be misfits are weeded out. I’ve altered my perspective over time on what a garden is and what it means to be a gardener.
• Ecological lawn care: A healthy lawn is easier and cheaper than you think. Topics include how to support grass feeding needs without synthetic fertilizers, how to convert a neglected lawn back into a lush, healthy grass ecosystem and maintenance tips for preventative care.
• Perfectly imperfect lawns (by design): Lawns are no longer just about grass monocultures. You can have a polyculture lawn that’s stunning and ecologically friendly. Less mowing. No watering. No fertilizing. Wildlife friendly. Embrace the imperfection of a flowering lawn! 
• Sedgscaping: Think of the sedge or carex family as an early-season grass that looks good all summer. Not only do carex look good, they’re durable, adaptable plants that enhance the health of an entire plant community.
• Meadowscaping: convert your lawn into a meadowscape even bylaw officers will love: A meadowscape is a wildish garden designed using primarily native plants (though you can mix in a few companionable non-natives) leveraging the power of systems and managed ecologically. Speaker:
• Putting your garden to bed for the winter: Fall clean-up and winterproofing your garden. 
• Wipe out weeds, the ecological way.
• Designing with layered plant communities: Deepen your understanding plants, how they grow together in community and how they relate to their surroundings. Layered plant communities replicate the layered structure of wild forests, meadows and shrublands to maximize biodiversity, habitat, resilience & beauty.

Nurturing the soil

• Advancing Soil Health: Fertile soil leads to healthy plants. How do you know if your soil is healthy. What foods need to go back to the garden so our soil doesn’t get depleted?  It all depends on what and where you want to grow.
• Soil Secrets Uncovered: Learn how bacteria and fungi, the soil’s structural engineers, create good soil health which in turn grows healthier plants, increase yields, reduces fertilizer needs, prevents leaching and erosion, holds more water and saves money.
• Become a worm wrangler through vermi-composting: Worm castings (poop) contain 8 times as many microbes as their feed, no disease pathogens, 5 times more nitrogen, 7 times more phosphorus and 11 times more potassium than ordinary soil so a little goes a long way. Learn how to farm worms successfully… it’s easy and fun too!
• Bokashi composting: Using all kitchen scraps, including meats and bones, and turning it into soil, this closed pre-compost system is done indoors and then finishes outdoors in less time than conventional compost making.
• Foundation of healthy gardens: wild soil inhabitants: Learn how to grow these with thermal and passive composting methods.
• Making compost tea and other brews: Prevention is the best cure when it comes to plant health. Learn holistic approaches to making compost tea and effective microorganism brews.
• How to build a hugelkultur bed: Learn to make garden beds from old logs, twigs, and garden waste. Hugelkultur beds build soil fertility, retain moisture, improve drainage, sequester carbon in the soil, maximize growing space and increase soil temperature just enough to boost plant growth.
• Getting to the Roots: A Guide to Soil Health and Composting Fundamentals: Understand the foundation of thriving plants—healthy soil. Covering soil composition, nutrients, pH, and the roles of microorganisms and macroorganisms, it explains how to feed the soil effectively using both organic and inorganic fertilizers. Participants learn the essentials of a variety of composting methods and discover mulching techniques and soil management practices that improve structure, retain moisture, and support beneficial life. This talk equips gardeners with the knowledge to debunk common soil myths and make informed, sustainable choices for lush, resilient gardens.
• Allelopathy in the Garden: Friend or Foe? Explore the concept of allelopathy—how certain plants release natural chemicals that influence the growth of others nearby. It provides an overview of common allelopathic and sensitive plants found in Ontario gardens and helps gardeners identify signs of allelopathic interactions. Practical strategies are offered for working with or around these plants.

Designing your garden

• Garden creation and planning: Building a garden from scratch is easier and cheaper than you think. We’ll look at two methods of building your garden: lasagna bed making and double digging. We’ll also talk about what to look for when buying plants and demonstrate the best planting method.
• Container planting: Discover how to create the best soil mix for container growing and an easy, low maintenance watering process.
• Designing rainscapes: Water brings our gardens and landscapes to life. Rainscapes are about water in all its forms – still and moving, above and below ground – and the rich design possibilities rain offers. Create a simple rain garden or turn your whole landscape into a rainscape that captures, stores and conserves water and creates a beautiful, wildlife friendly garden. 
• Success with roses in a zone 3-5 garden
• Have a Great Garden with Less Work: A presentation that offers gardeners 25 practical strategies to work smarter, not harder. Gail Walker guides participants in choosing low-maintenance plants, designing efficient beds, reducing weeding, managing lawns effectively, and using thoughtful watering and mulching techniques. Attendees will learn how to cultivate beautiful, productive gardens with less effort while maximizing enjoyment and sustainability in their outdoor spaces.
• From Droughts to Downpours: Adapting Your Garden to a Changing Climate: a practical, forward-looking presentation that helps gardeners in Southern Ontario respond confidently to climate change. It explains how warming temperatures, erratic rainfall, and shifting winters are reshaping our gardens—and why thoughtful plant choices, soil care, water management, and native plants are more important than ever. Blending science with hands-on strategies, the talk empowers gardeners to move beyond perfection toward resilient, climate-smart landscapes that protect biodiversity, manage water wisely, and turn everyday gardening into meaningful climate action.

Creating edible landscapes: vegetables, herbs, berries, fruits and nuts

• Increasing vegetable garden yields by attracting pollinators to your vegetable garden.
• Growing from seed: seed saving and seed starting techniques: Widen your horizons by growing your own plant material from seed. Tips for saving seeds and starting them for your spring garden. 
• Recipe for a great herb garden: top 16 picks for the kitchen garden – which herbs to grow and how to harvest them. The Scent of the Orient; The Aroma of the Mediterranean; The Spice of Mexico. Simplify the world of making great food taste greater! We’ll talk about how to plan your herb garden, growing edible flowers and choosing plants and how to preserve your herbs. 
• Foodscaping: Whether you have a small space or a large lot, you can have a beautiful garden and eat it too! Edible landscapes are a low maintenance, sustainable method of growing food for yourself, providing a habitat for wildlife, and beautifying your home.
• Growing native edibles: Did you know that many of our native plants, in addition to feeding pollinators and the birds, can feed us as well? Learn which native plants are good to eat and how to include them in your garden design.
• Nuts about nuts: Imagine harvesting your own walnuts, pine nuts, pecans, hazelnuts, heartnuts, or chestnuts. Discover the beauty of the surprising number of nut varieties that you can grow in the Thousand Islands.
• Pruning fruit trees
• Designing a fruit tree guild
• Square Foot Vegetable Gardening: A practical presentation that teaches gardeners an efficient, space-saving method for growing vegetables in any backyard setting. Drawing on the principles developed by Mel Bartholomew, participants learn how to set up raised or in-ground beds, create planting grids, plan crops for succession and companion planting, and maximize yield while minimizing weeding, watering, and soil compaction. The talk also touches on vertical gardening, soil preparation, and maintenance tips, giving gardeners the tools to enjoy a compact, productive, vegetable garden.

Landscaping with trees and shrubs

• Forestscaping: Forests are a powerful ally in mitigating the impact of climate change. We can help reforest our city by forestscaping our yards. Forestscapes are naturally layered plant communities of trees, shrubs and herbaceous plants that support each other. 
• Designing a food forest: A food forest is an edible plant community centred around fruit (or nut) trees. Learn how to combine multi-functional plant species in layers to create a beautiful plant community that not only provides you with food, but supports pollinators and birds, stores water, improves soil fertility, increases pest resistance and captures carbon.
• Why, when and how to prune: Pruning is one of the least understood aspects of gardening and yet knowing when to prune (and more importantly, when not to prune) is critical for growing strong, healthy, attractive trees and shrubs. We’ll take a holistic view of why, when, and how to prune – debunking some common myths along the way.

Increasing biodiversity and attracting wildlife to your garden

• Pollinator gardens: growing the best plants to attract a wide variety of pollinators. Find out which plants and what design criteria are the best for supporting our much needed pollinators while still looking good.
• Eradicating invasive plants: What’s invading next? Alien invasives are proving to be aggressive monocultures destroying native habitats. As a result we are loosing native species which changes the land use, water quality and does not support desireable wildlife and plants. You will learn how to identify, remove and replace alien invasive plants with desireable native species to keep our natural areas functioning as healthy ecosystems.
• Birdscaping: Increase the number and variety of birds in your yard by designing a garden that provides the food niches, nesting sites, shelter, water, and safety that birds need. 
• Designing living fences or hedegrows: Why put up a fence when you can create multi-season beauty and provide wildlife habitat by designing a hedgerow? Use hedges to create garden rooms, provide privacy & screening, grow edible fruits, nuts & berries while also offering shelter to birds and other wildlife. 

Cultivating beauty, magic and wonder

• The life changing magic of gardening: When I first become a gardener, I grew plants. Specimens bursting with vibrant colours, oversize blooms and striking foliage. In becoming a master gardener, I’ve tossed the notion that gardening is about growing plants onto the compost heap. My journey of discovery into new ways of seeing, growing and loving has tumbled me into a new, more magical relationship with my garden and with the earth. One is which I strive to think like a plant, find belonging in the ecosystem that I call home and embrace beautiful mess.
• Wabi Sabi gardens: Increase beauty and enchantment in your garden by embracing the ancient Japanese practice of wabi sabi. Loosely translated wabi is simplicity (elegant or rustic) and sabi means the beauty of age, wear or seasons.