Two confessions to make before diving into this week's column. First, I am on the board of the Alaska Botanical Garden, the sponsor of an annual spring seminar series that includes bringing an Outside garden authority and author to speak -- this year mycologist Paul Stemets. Second, I insisted that the group try to bring Paul here.

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Gardening calendar (3/26/09)

FLOWERS TO START FROM SEED: Acroclinum, aster, phlox, celosia, malva, salvia, lupine, cosmos, snapdragons, ageratum, seed dahlia, godetia and matricaria.

VEGETABLES TO START FROM SEED: Peppers, kale, tomatoes and Brussels sprouts.

HERBS TO START FROM SEED: Parsley, thyme and oregano.

TUBERS TO START: Begonias and dahlias.

CORMS TO START: Gladiolas.

DIMOND GREENHOUSE: Orchids Are Easy class, 11 a.m. Saturday.

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I figure I can get away with continuing on two counts. First, gardeners always need education and the Alaska Botanical Garden's mission is education. A great deal of effort, all year long, goes into getting speakers, arranging displays and all the other things that make a great educational conference hassle-free, informative and fun.

So clearly it shouldn't bother any gardener that I am pitching attendance at the garden's April 3-4 spring "Life in the Garden: From Mushrooms to Moose" conference. There will be dozens of speakers and all your friends will be there too as this is the "kick-off" of the gardening season. (And none too soon, I say!)

Second, Stemets, this year's keynote speaker, is such an important, dynamic and fascinating speaker, that I know I will be forgiven on that account as well. No one who hears Stemets' talks is ever the same, and I can promise that you won't be either. It will be a life-changing event.

Stemets, in case you are not familiar with him, is the author of half a dozen books on mushrooms. The last, "Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World," is an amazing look into the world of fungi. Read it and you, too, will be forever changed. You will never look at mushrooms the same way again.

And you shouldn't look at them the same way again. Those of us who have been using the soil food web know of the mycorrhizae, that mysterious, symbiotic relationship between almost all plant roots and fungi, but when you see the picture of the stars in space and realize they look just like that network of fungal hyphae, well, it stirs the gardener to thinking

For years and years we Alaskans were afraid of the amanita mushrooms that grow in our yards and out in the woods. Now we know that they are important to the health of our birch and that without the amanita, our trees would be puny if they grew at all. Ah, but there is so much more, ranging from the protection of this country from terrorism to creating safe pesticides and enabling the world to feed itself by recycling cardboard.

This is also the author of several books on growing and cultivating mushrooms; he is not averse to talking about that subject either. Frankly, we may all need to be growing and cultivating mushrooms, given this economy.

Trust me, friends, you want to hear Stemets -- and he is only one of the speakers at the Alaska Botancial Gardens' annual spring conference.

Jeff Lowenfels is a member of the Garden Writers Hall of Fame. You can reach him at teamingwithmicrobes.com or by calling 274-5297 during "The Garden Party" radio show from 10 a.m. to noon Saturdays on KBYR AM-700.

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