About the Guild
A free place to learn how plants work and how to grow them well, whether that's one pothos on a bookshelf or a backyard full of natives.
What we're for
The Planters' Guild demystifies gardening: helping millions learn the craft and science of growing in bedrooms, on balconies, in backyards.
There's no shortage of gardening advice. What's in short supply is advice that shows its work. Most of it is either too vague to act on or too technical to get through, and very little of it tells you where a claim came from. We write for the space in between: the actual science, said plainly, with the source named so you can check it yourself.
A guild taught its craft from the ground up. Apprentices worked beside people who'd been at it longer, asked the obvious questions, and nobody made them feel small for asking. That's the tradition we're keeping. You don't need to know what an aroid is before you walk in. You'll learn it here, along with why it matters to the plant on your windowsill.
What's here
Start with whichever one fits how you like to learn. None of them needs an account.
Learn in order
Ten short modules on growing in containers, from how a plant works to making new ones from cuttings. Modules I to IV are open now. Make a free account if you'd like your place to follow you from laptop to phone.
Meet the Apprenticeship →Look something up
Long-form entries across the Plant, Substrate, Leaf, Flower and Pollinator Libraries, the Care Guides, the Field Manual, California Natives and Myths Demystified. Every factual claim carries its source.
Browse the Library →Work it out
Small, free tools for the questions that come up at the bench: the Planting Calendar for when to sow, the Field Key for working out what's wrong with a struggling plant, the Tree Key for putting a name to a California tree, and the Grow-Light Calculator for whether a lamp is giving enough light.
See all the tools →Hear when it's new
A short note in your inbox once a month with what's landed in the Library and the Apprenticeship. Nothing in between.
Get the Guild Letter →The standard
A herbarium sheet is a pressed plant mounted with a label: what it is, where it was found, who identified it. When someone corrects the name, they add a new slip and leave the old label in place. That's the standard we hold the writing to.
The label
Every factual claim about a plant is cited, and we start with peer-reviewed research before anything else. If the evidence is thin, we say so rather than fill the gap with confidence.
The new slip
When something we've published turns out to be wrong, we correct it and say what changed. An entry goes up when it's right, not when a calendar says it's due.
The collector
No ads, no sponsored posts, and nothing we publish sits behind a wall. If a link ever earns a commission, it's labeled where it appears and listed on the Recommendations page.
How the Guild is structured
Everyone starts as an Apprentice. Finish the Apprenticeship and the Specimen Practicum and you're a Grower. Two ranks sit past that, for Growers who teach and build alongside us. They aren't open yet.
Open now · Free
Ten modules, then the Specimen Practicum: one plant, kept for at least twelve weeks, with dated notes.
Earned
Finish the ten modules and the practicum. You've learned the foundations and shown them on a real plant.
Not open yet
For Growers whose work becomes something others learn from: a lesson, a field exercise, a case study from their own bench.
Not open yet
For Growers who take on work bigger than one entry: research, checking claims across the Library, and tools.
About 25 to 35 hours of work across the ten modules, plus the practicum. Each module opens once it's finished and checked against its sources.
Who's behind it
Christopher Gunnuscio founded the Guild and edits it. He keeps almost 300 plants in a Bay Area high-rise, mostly aroids, with a tissue-culture habit on the side and a community-garden plot for anything that needs open ground.
He writes the entries, chases the citations and builds the site. For now it's a one-person operation, which means nothing goes up that he hasn't checked and doesn't stand behind.
The longer arc
This site is the first part. The writing makes the science checkable, and the Apprenticeship turns reading into doing. Between them, they bring growers together.
The part after that is a physical Guild in the Bay Area, where people can come to learn, find plants and find each other. It's a long build, and the work on this site is how we get there.
When you're ready
Everything here is free to read. A smaller group of readers pays for it, and that keeps it free for everyone else. Membership starts at $5 a month, and Founding Membership is $200 once, for life, for the first 1,000.
Not ready for either? Get the Guild Letter →
The Planters' Guild LLC is a for-profit publication. Membership and one-time support are purchases from the company, not donations, and they aren't tax-deductible.