Helping others learn to grow

COLUMBIA, Mo. – Jan Ivey remembers when she walked into the Heart of Missouri Master Gardeners’ high tunnel and stopped in her tracks.

Rows of healthy seedlings stretched before her, destined for the new All-America Selections Display Garden at Jefferson Farm and Garden in Columbia. The plants had started as tiny seeds in the homes of volunteer gardeners. Now they looked like they belonged in a commercial nursery.

“I became extremely emotional,” Ivey said. “That was the level of what our Extension Master Gardeners are able to do.”

For Ivey, that moment captured what the University of Missouri Extension Master Gardener program is really about: not just plants, but people learning, sharing knowledge and working together to improve their communities.

A lifelong love of gardening

Growing up in Lubbock, Texas, she was about 5 or 6 years old when she began working in the garden with her mother, whose roses won awards at the Lubbock County Fair. After the family moved to Hot Springs, Arkansas, Ivey helped her father as he worked with azaleas.

“Working with my hands, being outdoors, it’s just a natural fit for me,” she said.

The Heart of Missouri chapter recently earned designation as an All-America Selections Display Garden, one of only about 200 in the United States and Canada. The distinction recognizes the chapter’s ability to grow and showcase top-performing plants that have been extensively trialed and proven successful.

“It’s a great teaching mechanism,” she said. Visitors can see which plants thrive in mid-Missouri, learn about garden design, discover proper plant spacing and ask questions in a real-world setting.

The Extension Master Gardener program itself grew out of a need to extend the reach of horticultural expertise in the U.S. Cooperative Extension Service. Beginning in the 1970s, the program enlisted trained volunteers to help meet a growing demand for gardening information that individual extension specialists could not handle on their own. Extension Master Gardener volunteers became a way to amplify that knowledge, sharing research-based information with people in their communities.

The Extension Master Gardener motto, “helping others learn to grow,” becomes reality through thousands of volunteer hours each year. Participants complete intensive training and then share what they learn through workshops, demonstration gardens, community events and one-on-one conversations.

At the MU Jefferson Farm and Garden Extension and Education Center, that mission is dramatically visible in the All-America Selections Display Garden.

All-America Selections is a nonprofit organization that has evaluated new plant varieties since 1932. Plants are trialed for several years; those that perform well are designated winners and made available to the public. As a display garden, Jefferson Farm and Garden receives seeds to grow and showcase.

The process begins months before visitors see the plants in the garden. In November, Extension Master Gardener volunteers sterilize the pots that will be used for growing, helping prevent disease from previous crops. Seeds typically arrive in January, when volunteers decide which varieties they will grow. The seed-starting team grows the plants at home before moving them to the high tunnel in the spring.

There, the young plants continue growing in an unheated, uncooled environment until they are large enough to be potted up and eventually moved into the display garden.

Ivey’s role is to facilitate that process, bringing volunteers together, helping coordinate decisions about which varieties to grow and keeping the project moving from seeds to seedlings to plants in the garden.

The plants in the display garden have been trialed and selected for their performance in particular regions. For visitors, the garden provides a living demonstration of what can grow successfully in mid-Missouri and offers practical lessons in spacing, garden design and plant selection.

Learning never stops, Ivey said. Gardeners constantly exchange ideas and experiences with one another, creating a culture of peer education that benefits volunteers and the public alike.

That creates a ripple effect across the community. Families visit Jefferson Farm and Garden and discover how vegetables are grown. Children pull carrots from the ground and realize food does not begin on grocery store shelves. Residents take home seeds, learn new gardening techniques and return months later with stories of success. One visitor who received gourd seeds at an Extension Master Gardener event returned the following year with photos of the gourds she had grown from those seeds, and she eventually became a Master Gardener herself.

Sharing harvests, sharing knowledge

Extension Master Gardener volunteers also grow produce specifically for donation. Volunteers work with local food pantries to determine what foods are most needed, then plant, harvest and deliver the crops themselves. Chapter members also donate produce from their home gardens and distribute seeds at community events throughout the year.

The program also promotes environmental stewardship by helping Missourians make informed gardening decisions. Through research-based education, residents learn about plant selection, growing conditions, garden planning and sustainable gardening practices that help plants thrive while making the best use of available resources.

In Missouri, more than 2,100 Extension Master Gardener volunteers contributed nearly 150,000 hours of volunteer service across the state in 2025. They taught gardening classes, answered questions, maintained demonstration gardens, worked with young people and helped strengthen local food systems, including donating nearly 25,000 pounds of produce to food pantries and other organizations. The work, valued at more than $5 million, shows how far research-based gardening knowledge can reach when it is shared by volunteers in communities across Missouri, said Debi Kelly, MU Extension Master Gardner state coordinator.

“Jan is passionate about being an Extension Master Gardener volunteer,” Kelly said. “Her leadership as the All-American Selection Garden chair is evidence of her love of gardening, desire to learn from her chapter colleagues and her want of sharing her own gardening knowledge with others.”

For Ivey, who joined the program in 2019 while thinking about retirement, one of the greatest rewards has been the relationships she has formed.

“I’ve had numerous new friendships develop,” she said. “I’ve reconnected with people I hadn’t seen for 20 years. It’s just an ongoing fellowship and camaraderie that we experience.”

That sense of connection fuels the volunteers who maintain gardens, answer questions and teach others. In many ways, the success of the All-America Selections Display Garden reflects the success of the Extension Master Gardener program itself: people with different skills coming together around a shared desire to serve.

As visitors walk through the colorful display garden at Jefferson Farm and Garden, they see beautiful flowers and thriving plants. What they may not immediately see are the volunteers behind them, sharing knowledge, growing food, strengthening community and helping others learn to grow.

Photos

Jan Ivey, a member of Heart of Missouri Master Gardeners.

All-American Selections Display Garden at MU Jefferson Farm and Garden in Columbia.

Extension Master Gardener volunteers working on the All-American Selections Display Garden at MU Jefferson Farm and Garden.

Jan Ivey, right, and other Heart of Missouri Extension Master Gardener volunteers at the All-American Selections Display Garden at MU Jefferson Farm and Garden.