Amateur Gardeners are a passionate group of gardening enthusiasts who meet twice every year at the annual convention in Berkeley, and stay in touch over the Web for the rest of the year.

This Amateur Gardeners' Unofficial Association (AGUA) was founded in 2009 at one of the meetings. The idea was the brainchild of Mr.Ronald Perkins, an expert at backyard landscaping, and Mrs.Althea Jenkins whose raised garden beds are the envy of neighbors and attendees at the convention.

On our website, we propose to list events and highlights at our bi-annual meetings as well as share collected tid-bits of gardening wisdom from our 39 members. All of our members are dedicated gardeners who take pride and care in maintaining beautiful gardens and grow a variety of fruits and vegetables, some even for commercial produce.

At each meeting of our association, a specific topic seems to take over conversations and discussions, making it a neat idea to 'theme' our future events around one of them. For instance, in 2009 we found that greenhouse supplies were what most of our participants were interested in talking about, and we together came up with some excellent resources that helped us find material and supplies which would otherwise have caused much frustration and trouble to identify on our own.

In the first meeting of 2010, we found to our surprise that five different members from various parts of the state were engaged in Japanese garden design, making it the topic of most conversation. Raised garden beds can find a place in such Japanese gardens, and Mrs.Althea Jenkins was to be found networking all over the place with fellow gardeners and landscapers, offering her rich and valuable advice about building them effectively.

A charismatic and engaging figure, recognizable by her stylish Bulova ladies watch, Althea is the life and soul of our group, and a force without which these gatherings would be altogether less fun. Indeed, while she was chatting with the ladies it became obvious that many were also avid cross-stitch fans who made some attractive T cushion sofa slipcovers, throws, curtains and window dressings. Quick as lightning, Althea was trying to organize ANOTHER group of passionate cross-stitchers into a second meeting that runs parallel to our bi-annual gigs.

The second half of 2010 found us all veering towards the subject Mr.Ronald Perkins is most passionate about - backyard landscaping ideas. That, together with garden lighting, became the focus areas of that meeting, and we found to our delight that Mary White from Arkansas was a specialist in the area, scintillating the group with some brilliant tips and ideas for better gardening and landscaping.

For instance, we found that solar garden lights for garden lighting were the up and coming trend and were instructed to learn up all about it because of the green energy revolution that would make anything 'solar' attractive and appealing, not to mention 'the in thing'! (Obviously, this kind of thing is what matters to us amateur gardeners, and is the raison de etre for this association to exist!)

With many members indicating that they were planning to build conservatories (greenhouses) in their gardens, some for growing and selling plants as commercial businesses, and others for aesthetic appeal or to further indulge their hobby, it was suggested that conservatory blinds and other accessories for greenhouses as well as reliable sources of greenhouse supplies be another focus area for a future event.

Backyard design tips dominated the minds of our members again in the first meeting of 2011 - and at this event, our numbers have swelled to 52 members, with many folks hearing about us through the limited advertising we ran ahead of this annual meet in the local radio stations. Mr.Perkins even was a guest on one of the talk shows, offering his tips to listeners over a 500 square mile radius - and encouraging quite a few to join us on our escapades at the AGUA event.

We're sure this popularity of the Amateur Gardeners Unofficial Association will continue to grow, and this website will be the hub around which it all revolves. Feel free to drop by often, share your tips, and browse through our content about gardening, landscaping and sundry related topics. And contact us for details about our forthcoming meets. We'd love to have you drop in, if you can.