UCCE Master Gardener Program - San Mateo/San Francisco Counties

Healthy Plants. Healthy Communities. Healthy Environment.

The UCCE Master Gardeners are a public service and outreach program run locally by passionate volunteers.

Each year, trained and certified UCCE Master Gardeners provide free workshops, community garden support, and home garden advice to the residents of San Francisco and San Mateo Counties. Our work brings the latest horticulture and pest-management research to home gardeners. Topics include water conservation, sustainable landscaping practices, healthy food systems, green waste reduction, wildlife enhancement, energy conservation, horticultural science literacy, and much more.

A few of our many community service projects include:

Water Conservation

Focusing on the critical issue of water management in the home landscape, UC Master Gardeners, in partnership with Bay Area Water & Supply Conservation Area (BAWSCA), offer workshops throughout the Bay Area demonstrating water-saving techniques, including drought-tolerant plant selections, lawn replacement, sheet-mulching, rainwater collection and storage, and drip irrigation.

Healthy Diet and Gardening

Friendship Garden, in the Fair Oak neighborhood of Redwood City, is a San Mateo County sponsored community garden. The San Mateo/San Francisco Master Gardeners pair with a County nutritionist to hold monthly discussions in Spanish on sustainable and healthy diet and gardening practices. Topics include composting, soil preparation, seed selection and usage, and non-toxic pest and disease control.

Healthy Lifestyles for All

UC Master Gardeners facilitate multicultural and multi-generational gardening activities at the 30th Street Senior Center Plant Clinic in San Francisco, Laguna Honda Hospital and Rehabilitation Center, and the Redwood City Veterans Memorial Senior Center. Our programs include sustainable gardening lectures, clinics and hands-on workshops on how to establish and maintain a vegetable garden, advice for communities on management of its gardens, best practices for water conservation and soil care, and much more.

Healthy Kids

The UC Master Gardeners School Gardens Program hosts workshops, clinics, and professional development seminars tailored for our local schools’ teachers, aides, and parent volunteers. Our program instructs these leaders in developing a grade-level-appropriate horticultural curriculum as well as the logistics of building and maintaining a thriving school garden.