What began as a short-term stopgap for in person programming during the 2020 Pandemic, has become a much-attended weekly horticulture program. Due to the continuing popularity of the Horticulture Webinar Wednesdays program a team of Kentucky Horticulture agents have continued to present weekly Wednesday webinars at 12:30 ET (11:30 CT) as a “lunch and learn” horticultural program. This team also includes agents, specialists, and other experts who present a 30–45-minute horticultural class to the public, with a live question and answer session between the participants and presenter at class end.  All the presentations are recorded and posted to the Kentucky Hort News website (www.kentuckyhortnews.com/horticulture-webinar-wednesdays/) along with the slides, notes, a survey, and any other resource materials that the viewer may need.  The live program, advertised via social media and traditional media outlets by agents and specialists, as well as the recordings, draw viewers in from across Kentucky, and the U.S. Viewers are Master Gardeners achieving Continuing Education Credits, farmers fulfilling CAIP grant requirements, and others who enjoy learning trusted horticultural principles from a researched based land grant university. 

Since February 2022, when the 3^rd season started, through June 30, 2022, a total of  522 attendees have participated in the twenty weekly webinars.  

The Horticulture Webinar Wednesdays YouTube channel has received 34,516 views (4,900 watch hours) since it first launched April 2, 2020. The channel has 530 subscribers. However, we have seen rapid growth in the last few months and in just the last 28 days we have received 2,500 channel views which is 252 more views than our average. 

The most viewed videos on the channel include “Common Blueberry Planting Problems” – 7,028 views; “How to Start a Community Garden” – 3,802 views; “Backyard Black Raspberries” – 2,925 views; “The Incredible Edible Landscape” – 2,592 views; and “Top Ten Trees for Kentucky” – 1,922 views. 

The audience tends to be 67.9% female and 32.1% male. Age of viewers include 27.5% ages 25-34; 25.7% ages 45-54 and 23.9% ages 65+.