The 1,200 Weeds of North America DVD was presented at the Washington State Master Gardeners conference in Pullman, Washington.  Following the demonstration of the DVD, the class was moved to the field where the participants got a chance to practice their skills in analyzing the important characteristics of plants the found along the way.

Based on the following note received, the class was successful at least to some extent.

Thank you again for teaching the class last Saturday, I really enjoyed it, but more importantly, learned a lot more about good observation techniques for plant identification.  You said in class that most people ignore plants, and I thought I was one of the few who tried to identify what I saw.  However, when I returned to work on Monday, I drove by a stand of trees I drive by every day, and saw for the first time (or the 100th) the large vines starting to cover the smaller trees.  I was even able to see the purple-blue berries without stopping.  I didn’t know we had White bryony in Spokane, but there it was, right next to our property.  I think we caught it early enough that we can remove all of them in that spot, but of course who knows how many seeds have been planted already.  At least we know what to look for.

Thanks again for giving me (another) eye opening class on weeds.

Tim Kohlhauff

Plant Clinic Instructor

Spokane County Extension