Blue Angel hostas surround a tree in J.J. Averett’s home garden, part of a garden tour at the conference. (Photo by J.J. Averett)
When J.J. Averett became a University of Missouri Extension Master Gardener in 2009, hosting tours of her home garden someday wasn’t on her agenda.
For Averett, taking the master gardeners class that year was a way to socialize after the death of her husband, Ron, in 2008.
Friends knew about the hard work Averett had put into establishing shade gardens at her Nixa home and her volunteer efforts in the Greater Ozarks Hosta Society, so they encouraged her to sign up. Averett’s gardens boast “hundreds” of hostas, along with ferns and flowering hellebores.
“When he (Ron) passed, I thought, ‘You know, I think I will do that,’” Averett says of becoming a master gardener. “You know, it was the best thing I did.”
Seventeen years later, the master gardener’s home will be one of the stops on garden tours when hundreds of her fellow gardening enthusiasts meet for the 2026 Missouri Master Gardener State Conference in Springfield, June 4-7 at the Oasis Hotel and Convention Center, 2546 N. Glenstone Ave.
The statewide conference was last held in Springfield in 2013.
Tours, expert speakers and 42 presentations and workshops will fill the schedule, beginning that Thursday night, and the conference is open to the public, not just to master gardeners. Cost is $210, with additional fees for optional garden tours and workshops.
Friday, May 1, is the registration deadline.
After months of planning and enlisting about 50 volunteers, conference chair Angie Hutsell is hoping for a strong turnout.
Part of a robust Greene County chapter, master gardeners get ready this spring for their annual plant sale at Springfield Botanical Center. (Photo by Susan Wade)
“We would like to share as much of our knowledge with as many people who are interested,” the master gardener says. “We’re hoping we get people from all corners of the state — and to be honest, we’ll take you from Arkansas or Kansas or wherever you come from.”
A wide range of topics will be covered in classes on Saturday, June 6, and Sunday, June 7.
With the theme “Seeds to Table: Cultivating Health and Sustainability,” topics will range from growing flowers, mushrooms and backyard tomatoes to rainscaping, seed-saving and sustainable landscaping. Many classes will be taught by area master gardeners with expertise in everything from straw bale gardening to cooking with herbs.
“There are many good educators in the group, and they do a lot of community projects, so they’re well known,” Hutsell says.
Even on the tour of her home garden, Averett will share what she has learned about shade gardens: “I do a lot of educating here, too,” she says.
Experts from organizations like Extension, the city of Springfield, James River Basin Partnership, Missouri Department of Conservation and Springfield Community Gardens will also host classes at the convention center.
The conference fee of $210 covers most classes and activities, yet participants can also pay additional fees for workshops like the one that Saturday at Valley Water Mill, where they will help a Department of Conservation team build a wetland habitat to be set out on the water that day, Hutsell says.
Other add-on activities include a home garden tour that Thursday evening and Friday garden tours providing lunch and transportation, including a day trip to the Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Co. warehouse in Seymour and two separate day tours of home gardens. A shorter tour on Saturday will shuttle to Springfield-Greene County Botanical Center at Nathanael Greene/Close Memorial Park and city gardens near Phelps Grove Park.
Like all but a handful of workshops, though, a Friday night mixer and Saturday night banquet are also part of the conference’s basic package.
Master gardeners take part in community events like the Woodland Heights neighborhood’s annual Dirt Day at Lafayette Park. (Photo by Angie Hutsell)
At the banquet, the main attraction will be keynote speaker Mitch McCulloch, author of the book “The Seed Hunter.” Known for his work in regenerative agriculture and preserving global food biodiversity through heirloom seed collection, the former chef will sell and sign his book after his presentation.
“He’s been all over the world,” Hutsell says. “He’s done some very deep dives into obscure seeds and the cultures that grow them. He’s a trained chef, which gets him closer to the food he grows.”
McCulloch, a 34-year-old London native who now lives in Missouri, wrote “The Seed Hunter” after the COVID-19 pandemic forced him and his business partner to close their restaurant and catering business in the U.K.
As a chef, McCulloch had made a practice of buying produce from local farmers.
“I was very aware of the system we were living in,” he says. “You question when you see the same tomato come into the kitchen when you’ve worked in 8, 10, 12 kitchens.”
So when the pandemic hit, McCulloch moved out of the city and became a grower, eventually building a garden on the south coast of England. Inspired by a crop of garlic, he says his research for “The Seed Hunter” began.
Author Mitch McCulloch is the keynote speaker at the Missouri Master Gardener Conference in June. (Photo provided by Mitch McCulloch)
“I found that there were 900 varieties of garlic being grown worldwide and their culinary potential,” McCulloch says.
By the time McCulloch published the book in 2024, he had traveled to 13 countries on three continents to visit seed companies and meet farmers and seed-savers. In 2025, he was headed to Mexico when he stopped at a Baker Creek festival and fell in love — but with his future wife, not seeds.
He and Felicity Houston now live in Dixon, where McCulloch awaits the arrival of his green card and is “craving a garden pretty badly right now,” he says, adding that for now, he’s helping Houston’s grandmother with hers.
McCulloch and his former restaurant and catering partner, Joe Boak, are also planning to launch The Seed Hunter Seed Co. in the U.K. later this year as a “flavor-led, chef-inspired” heirloom seed company, McCulloch says.
At the banquet, McCulloch says he’ll share his philosophy about gardening, not give a “university lecture.”
“Gardening allows people to slow down,” he says. “Tending a plant from seed to harvest brings a full sense of satisfaction which is almost missing in modern life, and seeds can respect the past, present and future. They can tie you to a place, a person, a grandma, a friend.
“When you save them and grow them again, that sense of euphoria fills you, and that is really something pretty special.”
Demonstration and trial gardens at the Springfield Botanical Center will be part of a tour during the conference. (Photo by Angie Hutsell)
There’s a chance McCulloch could be preaching to the choir in June. Since the pandemic, Greene County Master Gardeners membership alone has grown to about 300, with attendance at chapter meetings more than doubling as more people consider the value of becoming “more self-sufficient and understanding where your food comes from,” Hutsell says.
Although research-based education is the focus, the social aspect of the statewide conference is a big part of its appeal, too.
When gardeners get together — as might be expected — they do “geek out,” Hutsell says, chatting about interests from African violets to succulents: “We like to talk about plants, we like to talk about dirt, we like to talk about flower production, how many tomatoes you got this year.”
Yet a conference of master gardeners can also resemble a reunion.
“We talk about people’s families; we check on folks,” Hutsell says. “I think the best thing about our group is it connects us socially and makes us want to be better gardeners and better people.”
Susan Atteberry Smith
Susan Atteberry Smith is a Dallas County native and a former college writing instructor and Springfield News-Leader reporter. A longtime freelance journalist, Smith writes for a variety of publications, including the Daily Citizen and Missouri Life magazine. More by Susan Atteberry Smith
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