SEQUIM — The Clallam County Master Gardener Program will celebrate its 40th anniversary on Wednesday.

Retired Clallam County Master Gardener volunteers are invited to join the celebration on Wednesday at the Woodcock Demonstration Garden at 2711 Woodcock Road.

No time for the event or any other information was provided.

Interested parties are told to contact Laurel Moulton, Master Gardener coordinator and regional horticulture specialist at 360-565-2679 or by email at laurel.moulton@wsu.edu for more information about attending or sharing memories to incorporate in the celebration.

Over the past 40 years, more than 700 Clallam County gardeners have finished the training class and gone on to serve communities, according to a press release.

The current roster of 133 volunteers includes 29 members of the class of 2021 and the longest serving active volunteer, Sally Tysver, hailing from the class of 1991.

The Master Gardener training class for new volunteers is offered in alternate years, with the next class scheduled for the winter of 2023.

The Clallam County Master Gardeners have evolved from answering plant questions to owning a demonstration garden and offering regular educational garden walks and an annual garden tour, the press release said.

Master Gardener volunteers offer lectures, workshops and demonstrations on topics as diverse as growing food, gardening in the time of climate change, protecting pollinators, soil health, water conservation, wildfire preparedness, and introducing new food and ornamental plant varieties.

They visit every second-grade classroom in the county each year to teach about plants, facilitate the garden club at the Sequim unit of the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Olympic Peninsula and collaborate with 4H to offer a 4H Garden Club.

The Plant Answer Clinic, the longest running service offered by the Clallam County Master Gardeners, is now offered online as well as in person.

The Washington State University Extension Master Gardener Program started in Pierce and King Counties in 1972.

The Clallam County Master Gardener Program started in 1981, less than 10 years later.

In the years since, the program has been implemented throughout the U.S. and Canada, and even as far as South Korea to help communities garden in a more sustainable manner, the release said.