The 7 Best Online Gardening Classes

This MasterClass taught by Ron Finley, helps aspiring green thumbs learn how to cultivate their gardens in non-traditional planting spaces. In this 10-part class, Finley lays out how to grow everything from succulents to vegetables in any planting vestibule, from sidewalk planters to pots in rooftop gardens.

The class is about two hours long and includes sections on turning nutrient-poor soil into fertile ground, maintaining compost piles, planting and harvesting vegetables, to creating and maintaining an herb garden. The sections are generally between eight and 21 minutes long, making them ideal for gardeners on the go.

MasterClass is an annual subscription-based membership that costs roughly $180 per year, billed in increments of about $15 per month. With that, subscribers not only get access to Finley’s gardening class but more than 150 other courses taught by leaders in their fields. MasterClass also offers a full refund within the first 30 days of purchase.

Starting a garden can be expensive, but in this class led by Kerry Ann Mendez, novices learn to design a garden while working within a budget. Mendez goes into the specifics of garden design before teaching students how to get the most bang for their buck.

Mendez gives tips on where to score plants on the cheap (or even free) that will thrive for more than a season, and how to save money when shopping. Students also learn what kinds of plants will work best regarding lighting conditions and growing zones. This course also focuses on creating pollinator-friendly gardens that require less water and maintenance than traditional gardens.

Please Note: This on-demand video class is best suited for students in USDA plant hardiness zones three through nine. Whether working out of a container garden or the ground, these tips will help students stretch their dollar far, since it costs only about $15. It's a win-win.

In this on-demand Skillshare course taught by herbalist and gardener Geraldine Lavin of Suntrap Botanical, newbies will learn everything they need to kickstart their garden. Whether in a container, community garden, or a backyard, Lavin teaches everything from plant propagation techniques like seed starting and divisions to harvesting. Since Lavin is an herbalist, she also spends time explaining herbs for the home garden.

This Skillshare course is broken down into 10 lessons that total around 46 minutes. The class revolves around one project, propagating an herbaceous cutting, but also teaches students how to maintain their garden and proper storage methods. It is also heralded in reviews by Skillshare users for its clear instruction and for inspiring students to take action in their own gardens.

In order to take the course, students must sign up for a Skillshare account at the cost of $12.99 per month for an annual subscription cost of $155.88 after a one-month free trial.

Dutch garden designer Piet Oudolf, whose work notably appears along The High Line elevated park in New York City, is known for his texture-rich, contemporary design with perennial plants. In this course hosted by Learning with experts, Oudolf and British garden designer Dr. Noel Kingsbury explore the farmer's family garden, Hummelo, while unpacking the site’s structure, texture, form, and color and how it informs the designer's garden aesthetic.

This is not a course for beginners, but rather for seasoned green thumbs looking to expand their knowledge about garden planning. The class is broken down into four sections, with corresponding assignments exploring plant structure, plant combinations, seasonality, and planting by region.

Class participants can begin the course whenever they want and will be a part of an online interactive classroom of no more than 20 individuals. Members can group chat and direct message each other in this collaborative learning environment.

Learning with experts offers two-course tiers: For about $99, the Peer option comes with lifetime access to the videos, notes, and online classroom, in addition to the course, assignments, and collaborative learning environment. The Expert option, for roughly $299, includes all of the Peer-level benefits but also comes with four weeks of access to an online tutor who provides personalized assignment feedback and coaching, assignments marked by Oudolf and Kingsbury, and a certificate of completion.

This free class from the online course site Alison teaches users how to grow organic vegetables with as little negative environmental impact as possible.

Although it seems counterintuitive that growing can have environmental drawbacks, "Growing Organic Food Sustainably" discusses the fundamentals of growing vegetables in an environmentally friendly manner to ensure prolonged soil health.

The three-module, on-demand course kicks off with lessons on how to grow over 20 different kinds of vegetables, from Swiss chard to broad beans, and onions. It continues with a module on how to maintain vegetables, including practices in crop rotation, soil health, and how to make compost.

While taking "Introduction to Growing Organic Food Sustainably", students will get insight into building raised beds and sowing seeds. The class lasts between one and a half hours to three hours, and students can receive a certificate upon completion (if desired). In all, it’s a solid introductory course to growing food and learning about environmental impact.

For those whose gardening goal is to make beautiful bouquets and floral arrangements, Charlie Ryrie’s Learning With Experts course, "The Cutting Garden" is a great place to start. The course is suitable for everyone, but it's aimed at gardeners who already possess basic skills.

"The Cutting Garden" introduces students to a wide variety of plants suitable for cutting gardens and explains how and where to grow them. It also teaches successional sowing, or staggering blooms, to get two crops of quick-maturing annuals a year from a garden. The course is divided into four sections, a practical guide in deciding how much time and effort you can allocate to your garden, as well as how to maintain a cutting garden.

"The Cutting Garden" offers two-course tiers: The Peer option comes with lifetime access to the videos, notes, and online classroom, in addition to the course, assignments, and collaborative learning environment for roughly $99. The Expert option includes all of the Peer-level benefits but also comes with four weeks of access to an online tutor who provides personalized assignment feedback and coaching, assignments marked by Ryrie, and a certificate of completion for approximately $299.

Among its full roster of online gardening courses, Oregon State University offers a basic botany class that will help any green thumb improve their gardening game. Taught by Master Gardener Signe Danler, this on-demand lesson teaches students how to identify plants, distinguish monocots from dicots (and why that’s important to know), and recognize fungus, lichen, algae, and moss.

By the end of the class, participants should be able to identify plants, name their basic parts, and the roles they play in their growth and development, as well as recognize a variety of leaf and root systems.

This on-demand course costs around $45 and takes between four and six hours to complete. This class is an excellent introduction for students pursuing a career in gardening, as it's part of the university’s "Master Gardener Short Course Series." Including this botany course, the program features 11 additional lessons for students to enroll in, which include topics like plant pathology and pesticide safety.

Should students want to take more than one lesson, each additional course costs roughly $45.