Gardening: Annual symposium focuses on what’s happening in the soil

Spring is going to come slowly this year so it’s time to take advantage of some local gardening classes to tide you over until the garden thaws out.

The Master Gardener Foundation of Spokane County has just the thing to get you over the hump. On March 11, the foundation will be hosting its annual Cabin Fever Gardening Symposium at the CenterPlace Regional Event Center in Spokane Valley. This year’s event features Mary Robson of Port Townsend, Washington, as the keynote speaker. Robson will be telling the story of how roots work with a little help from their friends, soil fungi and bacteria. Robson is a master storyteller when it comes to explaining how things work in the garden. She combines her years as a WSU extension horticulture specialist, author, writer and gardener to narrate the story behind the science and the beauty of the microorganisms in the soil’s rhizosphere.

Beyond Robson’s keynote at the beginning of the symposium, attendees will be able to choose four classes from a slate of 12 classes covering topics like permaculture, pruning, creating a sensory garden, bringing birds to the garden, making a rain barrel and hunting for wild mushrooms to name a few. For a full list of classes check out the Master Gardener Foundation’s website at www.mgfsc.org. Here are a sampling of classes:

Understanding what happens in the soil is an underlying theme of many of this year’s classes. Dr. Lynn Carpenter-Boggs of WSU will be speaking about the make-up of compost teas for nutrient supply and for disease suppressants or disease control. She will also talk about how to turn plain old compost into a magic potion for your garden.

Barbara Safranek, a local landscape architect will share her Zen lessons for the garden and the Japanese aesthetic of Wabi-Sabi. This is a fresh and uncommon perspective on beauty to most of us in the west. The Zen principles of Wabi-Sabi center on the acceptance of the fact that the garden is always changing. Safranek will share the seven Zen principles for creating and appreciating a deeper beauty in our gardens.

Horticultural therapist Cathi Lamoreux and landscape architect Anne Hanenburg are teaming up for a two-part workshop on the theory behind and the creation of healing gardens specifically designed to aid the healing process for a wide range of conditions. The second session of the class will discuss specific design features that should be implemented to increase the effect of healing within the garden.

Internationally known soil scientist Jill Clapperton will take us on a journey down the worm hole to help us understand the cast of characters that live and work in the soil and create soil biology. Healthy soil is an amazing network of soil pores, channels and tunnels that form the soil ecosystem infrastructure that eventually grows our food and plants.

Mushroom hunter Kelly Chadwick will teach us how to identify some of the mushrooms commonly found around Spokane in the spring, where to find them and good habitats for hunting them. Chadwick provides many local restaurants with delectable fungi gathered from the local forests and fields.