The planning that goes into creating a beautiful garden is wasted if the soil is poor. Learn about soil structure, fertility, and water availability to understand what happens underground. Learn about different ways to improve the soil through amendments and other techniques. Lectures are supplemented by hands-on lab sessions. Students receive a copy of the BBG handbook, Healthy Soils for Sustainable Gardens.

Professional horticulturists teach you the ins and outs of maintaining a city garden. Master the tools and techniques for plantcare, pruning, planting, transplanting, and other essential tasks. Learn about site assessment, maintaining flower borders, trees, shrubs, containers, grass, and groundcovers. Each class session focuses on a different maintenance topic.

Woody plants—including shade trees, conifers, small trees, and shrubs—form the backbone of a well-planned landscape design. This course will help you master the identification and uses of many woody plants found in urban landscapes. Classroom lectures and hands-on labs are augmented by sessions on the BBG grounds.

Woody plants—including shade trees, conifers, small trees, and shrubs—form the backbone of a well-planned landscape design. This course will help you master the identification and uses of many woody plants found in urban landscapes. Classroom lectures and hands-on labs are augmented by sessions on the BBG grounds.

Herbaceous plants accentuate other features in the landscape. When used effectively, they can provide almost year-round bloom. Learn identification methods, landscape uses, and diseases and pests of the perennials and annuals most commonly used in the urban landscape. Classroom lectures are augmented by sessions on the BBG grounds.

Herbaceous plants accentuate other features in the landscape. When used effectively, they can provide almost year-round bloom. Learn identification methods, landscape uses, and diseases and pests of the perennials and annuals most commonly used in the urban landscape. Classroom lectures are augmented by sessions on the BBG grounds.

Skilled gardeners must be able to identify and control common insect pests and diseases. In this class, learn which pests might attack your garden and how to control them. Proper site selection, plant selection, soil conditioning, and other integrated pest management (IPM) practices are discussed. Safe application of pesticides is also covered.

This class covers the elements of floral design and the tools of the craft through lectures, workshops, and critiques. Get a thorough introduction to basic techniques, including flower and foliage conditioning, greening an arrangement, and making bows. Create arrangements in a variety of styles: round, triangular, vertical line/mass, and three-sided, crescent, and seasonal arrangements. Learn to consider color, line, and texture. You will receive a toolbox to keep.

This class covers the elements of floral design and the tools of the craft through lectures, workshops, and critiques. Get a thorough introduction to basic techniques, including flower and foliage conditioning, greening an arrangement, and making bows. Create arrangements in a variety of styles: round, triangular, vertical line/mass, and three-sided, crescent, and seasonal arrangements. Learn to consider color, line, and texture. You will receive a toolbox to keep.

Learn advanced styles and complicated design mechanics with a variety of fresh flowers. This class allows you to be more expressive in your designs. You'll master techniques for parallel designs, vase arrangements, and working without floral foam, among other topics. Lectures, hands-on workshops, and critiques are included. Prerequisite: Basic Flower Arranging.

Learn advanced styles and complicated design mechanics with a variety of fresh flowers. This class allows you to be more expressive in your designs. You'll master techniques for parallel designs, vase arrangements, and working without floral foam, among other topics. Lectures, hands-on workshops, and critiques are included. Prerequisite: Basic Flower Arranging.

Dried and silk materials offer unique advantages—as well as challenges—to the designer because of the long life of the arrangements and the light weight of the material. Learn the techniques and current styles you'll need to design with dried and silk flowers. You will work with silk and dried materials alone and in combination. Please bring clippers or a floral knife.

Bring the fresh smells, warm days, and new growth of spring into your home with gorgeous arrangements. Create two designs that will explode with signs of spring, incorporating flowering and green plants found in traditional home gardens along with late-blooming spring flowers.

Learn how to design with the “supermarket” bouquet. Create interesting, graceful arrangements with accessories such as foliage from home, string, wool, ribbon, or feathers. Basic design will be discussed. Bring floral clippers and/or a floral knife.

Learn how to plan a fantastic party using the botanical bounty of summer. Students will design a seasonal outdoor party and an elegant indoor party and with appropriate linens, flower arrangements, and other decorative elements. Each student will create two centerpieces to take home. Bring floral clippers and/or a floral knife.

See a variety of wholesalers for fresh flowers and containers in New York's exciting flower market. Learn about pricing, diversity of selection, product availability, and seasonal fluctuations. You will meet suppliers and have the opportunity to make cash purchases.

See a variety of wholesalers for fresh flowers and containers in New York's exciting flower market. Learn about pricing, diversity of selection, product availability, and seasonal fluctuations. You will meet suppliers and have the opportunity to make cash purchases.

It's time to take care of those trees on your block! Completion of this course certifies NYC citizens to care for and prune young street trees. Learn to identify street tree species and the many factors that cause diseases. Also learn how to help trees survive a harsh urban environment. You will receive an instruction manual and information about tools at the first session. Taught in collaboration with Trees New York.

Explore new possibilities for your summer window boxes! See examples of beautiful designs and get the recipe to create them. Learn what every window box gardener needs to know about soil, height, sun, and plant layout. Bring photos of your windows and get expert tips on which plants to use and how, with references for where to buy your materials.

Many vegetables thrive in containers, making them perfect for windowsills or on decks, terraces, and rooftops. Learn which varieties do best in containers and how to care for them so that they reward you with a delicious and bountiful harvest!

Urban Agriculture Series!

• Vegetables in Containers
• Edible Weeds
• Chickenomics: The Art of Raising Chickens
• Beekeeping Basics

Did you know that many of the “weeds” you've been throwing into the compost are delicious vegetables? Learn how to safely identify your garden's edible “volunteers” and the tastiest ways to prepare them in your kitchen.

Urban Agriculture Series!

• Vegetables in Containers
• Edible Weeds
• Chickenomics: The Art of Raising Chickens
• Beekeeping Basics

Fresh eggs and high-quality fertilizer are just two of the many benefits of having your own chickens. In this class you will learn the basic requirements for raising urban chickens: how to build henhouses and coops, heating needs, types of food, keeping pests away, nurturing chicks and hens, and collecting those first eggs. There will be handouts for resources in the metropolitan area as well as online sites.

Urban Agriculture Series!

• Vegetables in Containers
• Edible Weeds
• Chickenomics: The Art of Raising Chickens
• Beekeeping Basics

Are you curious about beekeeping? You don't need a hive of your own to enjoy this course. Whether you're interested in the benefits of natural honey and wax products or looking to raise your ecological awareness, this course will get you buzzing! We will cover everything from beekeeping practices in an urban environment to the history of keeping bees and the current plight of honeybees all over the world. Learn about bee sociobiology (including the roles of queen, worker, and drone), pollination, and more.

Urban Agriculture Series!

• Vegetables in Containers
• Edible Weeds
• Chickenomics: The Art of Raising Chickens
• Beekeeping Basics

Do you have a quirky city space but not a clue how to create a garden in it? Join the author of The City Gardener's Handbook for a slide lecture and discussion on how to assess a potential garden site—whether it's a rooftop, balcony, or even (lucky you!) a yard. This short course will give you a start on design and get you thinking about the plants that best fit your situation, considering light, wind, privacy, space, and budget.

A rose by any other name won't smell as sweet unless it is one of the fragrant varieties! Learn which plants will grace your garden with fragrance and appeal to more than just the eye. This class also looks at the botany of fragrance, including why plants produce aromatic chemicals. Weather permitting, we'll tour BBG's Fragrance Garden. Each participant will take home the latest BBG handbook, Fragrant Designs.

How do sea plants differ from those that sprout from land? This workshop held in collaboration with the New York Aquarium (part of the Wildlife Conservation Society) explores the biology and ecology of a variety of local and exotic specimens from land and sea and the art of preserving plant specimens of all types. Study wildflowers to understand how they live bound to the earth while their relatives float at sea. Learn how sea plants—from single-celled algae to underwater kelp forests—sustain and enrich our lives with oxygen, food, medicine, and commercial products (puddings, toothpaste, and nondairy creamers)! Students will collect sea plants to identify and press. Dress for a beach walk.

Join this workshop to explore the short but fascinating lives of butterflies and dragonflies. After an introduction in the classroom, enjoy a leisurely walk around Lily Pool Terrace as you learn to find and identify common species and understand the important role these delicate creatures play. Children above age 12 are welcome with an accompanying adult.

Believe it or not, there are bats all over Brooklyn. Join this fun-filled moonlit walk and workshop about bats. You will hear bat echolocation, see them in flight, and learn about their key role in our survival on the planet today. Children above age 12 are welcome with an accompanying adult.

As the full moon emerges on this summer night, so will a wide variety of nocturnal wildlife in the Garden. Bring your flashlight and magnifying lens on this evening ramble to watch bats, cottontail rabbits, and other mammals, as well as beetles, spiders, and moths begin their nightly routines of feeding and courtship. Children above age 12 are welcome with an accompanying adult.

When times are tough, simple pleasures take on more meaning. If you're cooking more and eating out less, you can deliciously transform the simplest recipes with fresh herbs from your garden! Learn how to plant and use popular annual and perennial herbs, including basil, chives, lavender, mint, oregano, rosemary, and thyme, with Ellen Spector Platt, author of three books about herbs. Get tips on the layout of an herb garden, planting requirements, propagation, pruning, harvesting, and preserving, along with cooking and craft demonstrations and a tasting of three recipes. After class, students can visit the annual BBG plant sale to get their herb garden started!

Tai chi chuan (“supreme ultimate force”) is a Chinese martial art emphasizing how one's yin and yang can be brought to balance. Regular practice of tai chi chuan improves blood circulation, relaxes your mind and body, increases your chi (internal energy), and gives you a good night's sleep. The class is held outside on BBG grounds (except Tai Chi Chuan I), weather permitting. Wear comfortable clothing that allows freedom of movement.

This class includes step-by-step instruction in the principles of this ancient Chinese exercise. No previous experience is necessary.

Tai chi chuan (“supreme ultimate force”) is a Chinese martial art emphasizing how one's yin and yang can be brought to balance. Regular practice of tai chi chuan improves blood circulation, relaxes your mind and body, increases your chi (internal energy), and gives you a good night's sleep. The class is held outside on BBG grounds (except Tai Chi Chuan I), weather permitting. Wear comfortable clothing that allows freedom of movement.

This class includes step-by-step instruction in the principles of this ancient Chinese exercise. No previous experience is necessary.

This class is appropriate for those who have taken Tai Chi Chuan I or have experience.

This class is appropriate for those who have taken Tai Chi Chuan I or have experience.

This class offers advanced study of tai chi. Students should have completed Tai Chi I and II, or have equivalent experience.

This class offers advanced study of tai chi. Students should have completed Tai Chi I and II, or have equivalent experience.

Get out of the junk-food rut by learning to make tasty, healthy snacks at home. Using local produce and other nutritious ingredients, you can make an assortment of dried fruits and veggies, granola, crackers, and other goodies great for lunchboxes and snack time. Learn the basics of drying foods with a dehydrator or just your oven.

Take a taste-bud tour around the world in three summer afternoons! We are pleased and excited to continue our successful series with a class on wine and food pairings, focused on specific varietals from around the world. (Note: Returning students can expect new wines for these sessions!) The first class is devoted to whites, the second to reds, and the third to “before and after” wines—aperitifs, sparkling wines, and dessert wines. In addition to learning about and sampling complementary food-wine pairings, students learn about the terroir (grapegrowing conditions) of each wine. Students also receive a tutorial on the art of wine judging and get to score the wines tasted. Class will be held outdoors on the Fragrance Garden terrace, weather permitting. Students must be of legal drinking age.

Learn the art of making colorful glasslike ornaments with resin using preserved dried flowers, leaves, seeds, colorful ground spices, fabrics, paper, and other small objects. The class covers basic techniques of jewelry making and design; each student creates opaque or transparent resin beads to make a ring, pendant, or earrings, and everyone leaves with a distinctive and colorful piece of original jewelry.

From poppies to oranges, flowering plants exhibit some of the most diverse structures in the plant kingdom. Learn the basic morphology of angiosperms (plants with flowers) in this inspiring hands-on course to explore your inner scientist and artist. Each session is in two segments: First study morphology with Dr. Susan Pell: then get lessons and practice drawing the plant structures with botanical illustrator Wendy Hollender. Students in the Horticulture Certificate Program may take this course for a grade (as an elective).

Spend relaxing, enjoyable evenings at BBG through the summer months, recording on paper the transition from gorgeous spring blooms to vivid summer annuals to cool green landscapes and waterlilies, using watercolor and colored pencils. Receive expert tips on the technique of your choice, and learn new ways to achieve beautiful, lifelike effects when depicting flowers. Bring your own materials; a supply list will be mailed to you upon registration.

This class is not listed in the printed catalog.

Explore writing poetry outdoors with inspiration from the Garden. This workshop is ideal for beginning poets as well as experienced ones. Class will read and discuss poems by contemporary American masters, including Brooklyn resident Walt Whitman. Students will engage in creative assignments both in and out of class. Work will be critiqued in a supportive atmosphere, with individual attention from the instructor.

Enjoy the beauty of BBG in June as you paint trees, flowers, and landscapes outdoors. Practice contour drawing with either pencil or brush as well as spontaneous and layered techniques. This class is appropriate for all levels. Bring your own supplies; a materials list will be sent upon registration.

Enjoy the beauty of BBG in June as you paint trees, flowers, and landscapes outdoors. Practice contour drawing with either pencil or brush as well as spontaneous and layered techniques. This class is appropriate for all levels. Bring your own supplies; a materials list will be sent upon registration.

Develop your understanding of color and composition using pastel, an opaque medium that allows layering and building of color much like oil paint. Integrate live plant material from the Garden into still-life portraits, and work outdoors when possible to capture the beauty of early spring. This class is suitable for all skill levels and incorporates basic drawing principles for the beginner. A supply list will be sent to you upon registration; all other materials are provided.

Develop your understanding of color and composition using pastel, an opaque medium that allows layering and building of color much like oil paint. Integrate live plant material from the Garden into still-life portraits, and work outdoors when possible to capture the beauty of early spring. This class is suitable for all skill levels and incorporates basic drawing principles for the beginner. A supply list will be sent to you upon registration; all other materials are provided.

Nature is the theme. Simplicity is the key. With a bamboo brush, Chinese ink, and rice paper, learn the picturesque origins of Chinese characters. Get individual instruction in this ancient art form, and develop your own style. All levels welcome. Materials fee includes inks, brushes, and rice paper.

Explore botanical drawings and adventures inspired by nature in great children's books—then begin your own illustrated children's book! Students will create sketches and finished illustrations that emphasize natural settings drawn from life in the Garden. We will also study the fundamentals of book format, story, plot, setting, visual sequencing, the publishing industry, and children's book illustration. Students are welcome to work in any medium appropriate for the book format (to be discussed in the first class). Just bring a sketchbook and drawing instrument of choice to the first class.

Starting off with simple contour exercises, this class will teach you how to use line to delineate shapes—from still life to landscape. With each drawing you do, you will build skill and confidence to make finished drawings or as a foundation for painting. Subjects include art reproductions, still life, and, of course, BBG's beautiful landscape. Media include pencil, pen, and colored pencils. A supply list will be sent to you upon registration.

Learn drypoint etching techniques from this summer's featured artist at the Steinhardt Conservatory Gallery, Briony Morrow-Cribbs. Students will tour the exhibit with the artist, then return to the classroom to sketch an image appropriate for a drypoint, transfer the image to a Plexiglas plate, and etch their plate with an etching needle. The class will also cover various techniques for inking a plate and print it using an etching press. Students will take home their etching plate and several hand-pulled prints.

This class will explore the garden, gaining inspiration from BBG's summer blooms, then return to the studio for careful study of flowers, petals, developing fruits, sea pods, leaves, and stems. (Microscopic views will also be explored.) Learn about color, shape, form, patterns in nature, and how to record observations using botanical illustration and journaling techniques. This course introduces basic pencil and drawing skills, use of colored pencils and watercolor pencils, and how to identify, name, and label plants and their parts.

Animals and plants offer a wondrous variety of intricate forms and colors to the careful observer. This class will introduce you to the techniques scientific illustrators use to make complex forms simpler to understand and to draw; mix realistic color; and work from live models in motion. Students begin by studying plants at Brooklyn Botanic Garden (first three sessions), and then move on to animal models at Prospect Park Zoo (final three sessions). The class is open to students at all levels of proficiency but does require determination and patience: Making realistic images is slow and work-intensive—but uniquely satisfying! A supply list will be sent to you upon registration.

Explore the beauty and luminosity of the watercolor medium through nature. You will learn new techniques and increase your drawing and painting skills through discussion, demonstration, exercises, and one-on-one attention. All skill levels are welcome. Bring your own materials. A supply list will be sent to you upon registration.

Join BBG plant experts for a fascinating tour of numerous interesting habitats in the New Jersey Pine Barrens. The expedition will search for beautiful orchids and beastly (but also beautiful!) carnivorous plants. We hope to see pink lady's slipper (Cypripedium acaule), dragon's mouth (Arethusa bulbosa), grass pink (Calopogon tuberosus), twayblades (Liparis species), pitcher plants (Sarracenia species), sundews (Drosera species), and, if we're lucky, a species of bladderwort (Utricularia), an aquatic carnivorous plant!

The time just before and after sunset has been called the magic hour; the air turns still, and nature can appear at its most impressive. We will explore ways to use this light to the best effect in the beautiful setting of the Garden. Advanced techniques such as selective focus, long exposures, and fill flash will be explored, with discussions on composition and technique. This class is for people who are comfortable using cameras and want to extend their knowledge. Bring your camera—film or digital—and samples of your work to the first class.

Join us for an afternoon with Amy Stewart, author of Wicked Plants: The Weed That Killed Lincoln's Mother and Other Botanical Atrocities, an A to Z of plants that kill, maim, intoxicate, and otherwise offend. Drawing on history, medicine, science, and legend, Amy will present tales of bloodcurdling botany to entertain and enlighten gardeners and nature lovers. Learn about the plant that killed Abraham Lincoln's mother and the shrub that ignited a global war. From strychnine to castor bean, from poison sumac to monkshood, from carnivorous plants to weeds that spontaneously combust, Stewart introduces an unforgettable cast of characters and tells their tales with her own wicked sense of humor. The talk is accompanied by dazzling photographs and historical images, copper engravings, and even a few botanical villains in seed and plant form.

Brooklyn Botanic Garden, in cooperation with the Manhattan Rose Society, will serve as the 2009 principal host of the Great Rosarians of the World lecture series—East Coast. Two outstanding rosarians will be honored for their work in promoting the love of roses and helping bridge the gap between two major factions in the hobby, modern roses and old garden roses. Stephen Scanniello is best known for the transformation of BBG's Cranford Rose Garden into a world-acclaimed rose garden during his tenure as its curator. He is currently president of the Heritage Rose Foundation. Marilyn Wellan is the immediate past president of the American Rose Society. She is only the second woman to hold that position in the society's 116-year history and was recently elected to the board of trustees of the Heritage Rose Foundation. The day will begin with a panel discussion: “Grow Easy Roses,” followed by the award presentation and lectures by Stephen and Marilyn. A reception follows in the rotunda.