Loudoun County Master Gardener Association

Goal: $4,000.00

Specific Need

Unlock a Matching Grant and Support Local Students!

The Loudoun County Master Gardeners Association (LCMGA) annually awards scholarships to support local students pursuing careers in horticulture and related fields. We are investing in the next generation of horticulturists, environmental scientists, and landscape professionals who will contribute to sustainable practices and environmental stewardship. Your donation will support the expansion of this program. To encourage the growth of these scholarships, our LCMGA Board has pledged a matching challenge grant for this scholarship program. Every dollar you give brings us closer to unlocking these additional funds.  Please donate now to double your impact and help us grow more opportunities for students!

What we do: 
We educate Loudoun County residents about environmentally sustainable horticultural management practices and environmental stewardship. In 2024, 132 active master gardeners contributed 12,065 hours of voluntary support for sustainable landscape management in Loudoun County. These efforts benefited over 50,000 members of our community. 

The LCMGA scholarship program is a small part of the broader efforts of the Loudoun County Master Gardeners. As further outreach to the community, in addition to the many educational and advisory programs we operate, last year we launched a scholarship program to assist local students in pursuing horticulture-related community college and university programs. In 2024, we were able to award 2 scholarships of $1,000 each to students continuing their education at NOVA. We plan to expand the program this year to offer up to two more scholarships for graduating high school seniors.

Mission

Our mission is to educate Loudoun County, VA residents about safe, effective and sustainable landscape management practices.  We are volunteers who have been extensively trained under the auspices of Virginia Tech and the Virginia Cooperative Extension Loudoun office to provide unbiased research-based horticultural information to the community.

Profile

Learn about a few of our programs below:

Symposium
The Association supports the implementation of an annual gardening symposium, to be held on March 22 this year (registration open now!). In 2023, this symposium attracted 71 participants to hear from 4 expert speakers on contemporary issues of soil, native plant landscape, insect and herb management. (More information at https://loudouncountymastergardeners.org/events/annual-symposium/

Water, Tree and Land Stewardship Programs
Master gardeners with supplemental specialized training are available to provide free advisory assistance to Loudoun residents on strategies for pond/stream protection and maintenance, the control of invasive species, and tree health. In 2024, more than 18 of these assessments and accompanying reports were completed. 

Of particular note in 2024, the Gravel Bed Tree project received the 2024 Loudoun County Environmental Commission’s Environmental Excellence Award and was honored with the 2024 National Association of Counties (NACo) award in the category of County Resilience: Infrastructure, Energy and Sustainability. This innovative program includes the planting and ongoing care of 75 saplings in gravel beds each spring, in partnership with Loudoun County Parks and Recreation. These trees were produced and planted at theClaude Moore Park and Franklin Park. 

Demo Garden
Located at Ida Lee Park, and open to the public, these demonstration gardens showcase multiple types of gardens, maintained and managed by our volunteers, which can be planted in anyone’s backyard. In 2024, the 1,700 pounds of fresh produce harvested from the Demo Garden was donated to Loudoun Hunger Relief.

Healthy Virginia Lawns
This program provides advice to Loudoun residents about how to achieve a more productive lawn while protecting local streams and groundwater from runoff and the leaching of fertilizers. More than 50 home advisory visits and detailed reports were successfully completed by our volunteers in 2024, covering more than 750,000 square feet.

Help Desk
Our Help Desk answers a wide range of gardening questions raised by Loudoun residents through phone calls, emails, and office visits. Queries about plant and tree management, pest and disease control, composting, weed control, and environmental management are answered by our volunteers. In 2024, more than 550 inquiries were handled by our volunteers.

Garden Clinics
Occurring in May-October, Garden Clinics are held at three locations in Loudoun County. Residents can walk up and ask for advice and pick up helpful educational materials. Our Garden Clinics are like an in-person Help Desk where residents interact directly with our volunteers. In 2024, more than 2,300 people visited Garden Clinics and asked questions of our volunteers. 

Lecture Series
Held in-person and virtually, our Lecture Series provides the Loudoun community with free access to horticulture and gardening insights from a range of speakers drawn from the LCMGA and beyond the county.  In 2024, a total of 9 lectures, in conjunction with Loudoun County Public Libraries, were held with 290 direct participants and 1,657 attendees watching through the LCPL’s You Tube channel.

Children’s Education 
Our Children’s Education Team works with classes in Loudoun’s elementary schools, leading programs about the environment, facilitating a passion for environmental stewardship in the next generation. In 2024, a total of 14 programs were completed. 

Speakers Bureau
Upon request from clubs, community groups and HOAs, master gardeners provide lectures on a wide range of gardening topics. In 2024, 16 speaking engagements were attended by 429 Loudoun residents. 

Trumpet Vine
The Association publishes 4 issues of its Trumpet Vine newsletter each year – offering educational articles, seasonal advice, information about featured plants, and horticultural news. This has a subscription list of approximately 8,000 mostly Loudoun recipients.

          See more information about our programs on our website here: https://loudouncountymastergardeners.org/