Houseplants: Bring the Outdoors In
In the northeast, when the warm season comes to a close, it’s hard to say goodbye to nature’s lushness and our container and in-ground plants. However, there is an opportunity to preserve and transfer some favorites into the home. As a bonus, houseplants offer therapeutic benefits and enhance indoor air quality. Learn from Brent McHale, Staff Horticulturist and houseplant enthusiast, about which outdoor plants can succeed indoors, and nurture your connection to nature. From tropical plants to flowering annuals, herbs to succulents, there’s an array of plants to choose from.
Plants of the Salt Marsh
Plants of salt marsh communities are uniquely adapted to tolerate and survive the stress of repeated, daily salt-water flooding. Learn which members of our wild flora can withstand these harsh conditions and the various mechanisms they’ve evolved to cope with—and even thrive in—environmental conditions that would kill most plants. Melissa will lead you on a low-tide botanical journey into an iconic and vulnerable Maine habitat. Please wear boots or sneakers that can get wet (and maybe redolent of the salt-marsh…).
Sow for the Future: Native Trees and Shrubs (Field Study)
Whether grown from seed or transplanted as seedlings, native woody species can adapt to changing conditions and challenging environments, benefitting urban communities and rural developments or woodlots by filling in empty spaces and protecting and bringing nutrients back to the soil.
Learn MoreIntroduction to Encaustics
Drip, pour, drag, layer, heat, and incise! Learn the art of encaustic painting in this hands-on workshop using pigmented wax and a heated palette! Through a rich variety of marks and surfaces, explore the various painting techniques of this seductive medium. We will also look to CMBG’s gardens as sources of inspiration.
Learn MoreEcological Landscape Design
Students will examine naturally occurring systems that influence design decisions, practice environmental site analysis, and design conceptual plot plans for a selected site. Instruction will take place online for days one and two. On day three, students will meet at the Gardens to critically examine applied design features that address ecological principles and components.
Learn MoreThe Art of Forest Bathing: Shinrin Yoku
Deepening your connection to nature through moving meditation offers enormous benefits for personal well-being. Follow Susan Bickford, forest therapy guide for the ancient Japanese practice, Shinrin Yoku, or forest bathing, as she gives you the tools to begin your own meditation practice. In this gentle class, experience how the simple practice of walking mindfully through a forest can provide deep serenity. By engaging with the forest with all five senses, we enhance awareness and presence. Despite a busy lifestyle, taking time for ourselves is enormously important—what luck that we can do so by walking in the forest!
Fall Botanicals in Colored Pencil
Using autumn plants and flowers, learn and/or further your colored-pencil skills. We’ll discuss how to observe and draw a specimen, then transfer the sketch to a final piece. The ability to draw and/or sketch is required for this class. Learn how to pick out pencil colors and combine those colors using layering techniques.
Learn MoreInvasive Plants: Issues, Identification and Ecology
For two days, dive into learning the basic ecological problems surrounding invasive plants, the complicated (and sometimes political) issues surrounding the species, and the process by which a plant becomes labeled “invasive.”
Learn MoreTree ID: Forest Species of Maine
Our Northeastern forest genera consists of a wide assortment of deciduous and coniferous species that vary throughout the macro- and micro-climatic regions of Maine. Understanding these species helps inform landowners about management, the local ecology, soils, and successional development. Join us and learn how to identify many of Maine's forest trees and about concepts like silvaculture and climate adaptive species. Autumn is the perfect time for this exploration—beyond the natural spectacle, the range of fall colors provides Allysa Gregory, Maine District Forester, the perfect palette by which to explain trees and their color choices. Leave feeling more connected to our forests and confident in identifying trees in your area.
IPM in the Landscape
While there are beneficial bugs, fungi, and bacteria in nature, there are also those indigenous to an ecosystem that become invasive. In this class for experienced gardeners or landscapers, State Horticulturist, Gary Fish, will cover extensive ground on the insects, diseases, and deficiencies deemed harmful to wild or cultivated landscape plants. Applying principles of Integrated Pest Management (IPM), the course will help students learn how to identify, monitor, and manage poor plant health. Instruction will focus on prevention as a means of management, cultural practices and plant selection, and the decision process and actions to take if an infestation occurs.
Gary Fish is the State Horticulturalist at the Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry. He is a past coordinator of the Maine YardScaping Partnership and manager of the Pesticide Control Board. He has a B.S. in forest and wildlife management from the University of Maine, College of Forest Resources and has been a licensed professional forester since 1985. An aspiring landscape and nature photographer, he attributes his love of plants to his mother and her beautiful rose and rock gardens.
Making a Harvest Wreath
Ever wanted to preserve your garden after the season has ended, extending the enjoyment of its bounty? Join Staff Horticulturist Jen Dunlap and learn the process of making dried wreaths from cuttings collected from your garden or surrounding property. Jen will take you through this art and craft, step-by-step. A materials list will be supplied upon registration, as will a list of suggested cuttings to have on-hand, if you’d like to make a wreath during class. If you won’t have the dried cuttings, you can still learn and keep the recorded class demonstration as reference.
Resilient Landscapes in the Built Environment | Section II
Mondays, November 22, November 29, December 6 and December 13 | This series of four class sessions is designed for students who work in landscape, ecology, and horticulture positions, or those who are land stewards with a strong background in gardening, landscaping, or land-management.
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