Marin gardener talks at garden club

Marin Master Gardener Toni Gattone will give a presentation on “Adapt Your Garden for Life” at 7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 3, at the Valley of the Moon Garden Club’s meeting at the Sonoma Valley Veterans Memorial Building, 126 First St. W., Sonoma.

Gattone’s passion for gardening began in Chicago where the winters cramped her ability to garden year round. In the 1970s, she fulfilled a dream and moved to the warmer climate of Northern California and she began conducting public seminars for 3M Company in San Francisco.

In 1982, Gattone joined an entrepreneurial communications company where she offered presentation skills to senior executives in corporate America. For the last 25 years, she has managed a dozen sales associates selling tools, books, garden art and other related items to nurseries in California. Gattone became a Marin Master Gardener in 2011. She co-chaired the public seminars committee and expanded their community outreach to more than 45 seminars a year.

Gattone presented public seminars on edible landscaping and growing edibles in containers. Her new seminar is “Adapt Your Garden for Life” which has been received with great enthusiasm from Master Gardeners, garden clubs, senior groups, libraries and nurseries.

The talk will cover how raised beds, containers and vertical gardens make maintenance and harvesting a snap. She’ll discuss the conversion of uneven flagstone paths to wider, safer solid surfaces. She’ll review adapting old tools to greater comfort or replacing them with new ergonomic tools. And she’ll give the strategies to being a resilient, smarter gardener.

“Meet & Greet” is at 6:30 p.m. with the speaker presentation beginning at 7 p.m. Members are free. Guests are $5 which can be applied toward membership. Refreshments and garden raffle to follow. For information go to vom-garden-club.org.