This season, big changes are underway! As we embark upon construction of the transformative Garden Gateway Project, a range of engaging education programs will continue but will feel slightly different during this period of exciting growth. You’ll find plant-inspired programs to engage your mind and body that take place onsite, offsite and virtually.
Please click the blue rectangles on the calendar for event and program information.
Upcoming Adult Education Programs
Walk on the Wild Side
Walk on the Wild Side
Join horticulture staff and experienced volunteers on a walk around the Blomquist Garden of Native Plants to learn about connections between people, plants and place. Each month will feature a differe...
Seed Starting for Fall and Winter Vegetables
Seed Starting for Fall and Winter Vegetables
The height of summer is the time to start planning your fall and winter vegetable garden. Starting your vegetables from seed gives you the opportunity to expand the varieties of plants you grow, inclu...
Midday Meander
Midday Meander
Join Kavanah Anderson, director of learning and community engagement at Duke Gardens, for a conversational stroll in the garden that deepens your relationship with plants. Swap plant stories, dig into...
Steeped in Culture: A Summer Season Chinese Tea Tasting
Steeped in Culture: A Summer Season Chinese Tea Tasting
Experience tea as a social beverage and cultural tradition on this seasonal sensory journey with Violet Yang of Forest Well Tea. Participants will taste four different Chinese loose-leaf teas and be g...
Botanical Bitters
Botanical Bitters
In our modern era, classic bitters such as Angostura are often splashed into a cocktail. These bitters have their roots in European culinary traditions of aperitifs or digestifs (think Cynar, Campari)...
Botany Spotlight: Amazing Plant Adaptations to Terrestrial Environments
Botany Spotlight: Amazing Plant Adaptations to Terrestrial Environments
Plants thrive in an extraordinary diversity of habitats, from hot, dry deserts to humid tropical rain forests to cold arctic tundra to expansive grasslands. But unlike most animals (including humans),...
Walk on the Wild Side
Walk on the Wild Side
Join horticulture staff and experienced volunteers on a walk around the Blomquist Garden of Native Plants to learn about connections between people, plants and place. Each month will feature a differe...
Finding Joy: Plant Meditation and Sculpture
Finding Joy: Plant Meditation and Sculpture
In this accessible workshop, participants use sculpture and plant wisdom as pathways to self-discovery. Led by sculptor and certified mindfulness instructor Meg Stein (CFP, MFA), this workshop invit...
Meet the Keepers
Meet the Keepers
Plan your visit to include a stop in the Charlotte Brody Discovery Garden for this special opportunity to meet the keepers of the bees, chickens and incredible edible plants in this garden area belove...
Plant Propagation: Growing New Plants from Cuttings
Plant Propagation: Growing New Plants from Cuttings
Plants are amazing organisms, with many capable of cloning themselves from a stem cutting. Jason Holmes, curator of the Gateway Gardens at Duke Gardens, will guide you through the process and timing o...
Most Delicious Poison: A Virtual Author Talk with Noah Whiteman
Most Delicious Poison: A Virtual Author Talk with Noah Whiteman
Based on cutting-edge science in the fields of evolution, chemistry and neuroscience, Most Delicious Poison by Noah Whiteman reveals the origins of toxins produced by plants, mushrooms, microbes and...
Midday Meander
Midday Meander
Join Kavanah Anderson, director of learning and community engagement at Duke Gardens, for a conversational stroll in the garden that deepens your relationship with plants. Swap plant stories, dig into...
Meet the Keepers
Meet the Keepers
Plan your visit to include a stop in the Charlotte Brody Discovery Garden for this special opportunity to meet the keepers of the bees, chickens and incredible edible plants in this garden area belove...
Botanical Embroidery as Visible Mending
Botanical Embroidery as Visible Mending
In this two-hour class with Julia Gartrell, artist and creator of the Radical Repair Workshop, students will learn how to embroider botanical designs onto garments. This is a great way to jazz up a ...
Native Shrubs for Resilient Landscapes (virtual)
Native Shrubs for Resilient Landscapes (virtual)
Shrubs are an important layer in natural plant communities, serving multiple functions and supporting other plants and wildlife. In cultivated landscapes, they’re often relegated to foundation plant...
Native Shrubs for Resilient Landscapes (in person)
Native Shrubs for Resilient Landscapes (in person)
Shrubs are an important layer in natural plant communities, serving multiple functions and supporting other plants and wildlife. In cultivated landscapes, they’re often relegated to foundation plant...
From One to Many: Plant Propagation Walk
From One to Many: Plant Propagation Walk
Join Jason Holmes, curator of the Gateway Gardens at Duke Gardens, on a walk through Duke Gardens to learn about different techniques and necessary materials for propagating plants. Learn which propag...
Meet the Keepers
Meet the Keepers
Plan your visit to include a stop in the Charlotte Brody Discovery Garden for this special opportunity to meet the keepers of the bees, chickens and incredible edible plants in this garden area belove...
Herbs Beyond the Kitchen
Herbs Beyond the Kitchen
This workshop with Brittaney Whitenhill of Our-Backyard.org invites participants to explore the multifaceted world of herbs. Discover their medicinal properties, aromatic benefits and creative uses be...
Walk on the Wild Side
Walk on the Wild Side
Join horticulture staff and experienced volunteers on a walk around the Blomquist Garden of Native Plants to learn about connections between people, plants and place. Each month will feature a differe...
Meet the Keepers
Meet the Keepers
Plan your visit to include a stop in the Charlotte Brody Discovery Garden for this special opportunity to meet the keepers of the bees, chickens and incredible edible plants in this garden area belove...
Steeped in Culture: An Autumn Season Chinese Tea Tasting Experience (October)
Steeped in Culture: An Autumn Season Chinese Tea Tasting Experience (October)
Experience tea as a social beverage and cultural tradition on this seasonal sensory journey with Violet Yang of Forest Well Tea. Participants will taste four different Chinese loose-leaf teas and be g...
Remembering in the Garden: Community Journaling in Nature
Remembering in the Garden: Community Journaling in Nature
In this community journaling in nature workshop, explore ways that gardens and stories can heal our minds and bodies. On a guided, meditative stroll amongst the grand and small sights, sounds and smel...
Meet the Keepers
Meet the Keepers
Plan your visit to include a stop in the Charlotte Brody Discovery Garden for this special opportunity to meet the keepers of the bees, chickens and incredible edible plants in this garden area belove...
Botany Spotlight: Meet the Meat Eaters—Carnivorous Plants
Botany Spotlight: Meet the Meat Eaters—Carnivorous Plants
Enter the remarkable world of carnivorous plants with Alec Motten, professor emeritus, Duke University Department of Biology. Start in the classroom with an overview of the impressive array of structu...
Meet the Keepers
Meet the Keepers
Plan your visit to include a stop in the Charlotte Brody Discovery Garden for this special opportunity to meet the keepers of the bees, chickens and incredible edible plants in this garden area belove...
Pruning with Confidence: Small Trees and Shrubs
Pruning with Confidence: Small Trees and Shrubs
Whether you've been nervously eyeing an overgrown branch or just want to keep your trees healthy and beautiful for years to come, this practical pruning workshop with Bobby Mottern, director of hortic...
Harvest Festival
Harvest Festival
Celebrate the bounty of autumn with a festival of activities, music, demonstrations and more, led by Duke Gardens and other local groups in the Charlotte Brody Discovery Garden. We'll have activities ...
On the Rocks: A Scree & Crevice Garden Tour
On the Rocks: A Scree & Crevice Garden Tour
At first glance, a pile of rocks seems like the last place a plant would want to call home—yet the scree and crevice gardens at Duke Gardens are bursting with an array of tenacious, beautiful and cl...
Seeing the Garden — Plein Air Landscape Painting Through Observation
Seeing the Garden — Plein Air Landscape Painting Through Observation
“Seeing the Garden” is a painting class with instructor James Keul, Durham-based artist and avid gardener, focused on direct observation of the cultivated landscape at Duke Gardens. Working in wat...
Meet the Keepers
Meet the Keepers
Plan your visit to include a stop in the Charlotte Brody Discovery Garden for this special opportunity to meet the keepers of the bees, chickens and incredible edible plants in this garden area belove...
Hearty Landscapes: Foodscaping for Joy, Beauty & Abundance
Hearty Landscapes: Foodscaping for Joy, Beauty & Abundance
Learn how to transform any yard, large or small, into a beautiful, productive edible landscape. This presentation with Brittaney Whitenhill of Our-Backyard.org introduces the core principles of foodsc...
Meet the Keepers
Meet the Keepers
Plan your visit to include a stop in the Charlotte Brody Discovery Garden for this special opportunity to meet the keepers of the bees, chickens and incredible edible plants in this garden area belove...
Mixed-Media Floral Greeting Cards
Mixed-Media Floral Greeting Cards
In this guided mixed-media workshop with Patricia Efunsade, founder and creative director of SaKredJoi Art, participants will create a series of botanically inspired greeting cards using a simple and ...
Mum’s the Word: Special Walking Tour of Show Chrysanthemums (Oct.)
Mum’s the Word: Special Walking Tour of Show Chrysanthemums (Oct.)
Mums can be carefully cultivated to produce amazingly large blooms in a spectacular range of flower types and colors. Learn what makes display mums so special as Michelle Rawlins, Ruth Mary Meyer Japa...
Botanizing at Occoneechee Mountain
Botanizing at Occoneechee Mountain
This North Carolina State Natural Area is a gem, with a diversity of natural plant and animal communities not found anywhere else in the Triangle region. Join Paul Manos, Duke biology professor and Du...
Build a Bug Snug
Build a Bug Snug
Support winter wildlife and re-purpose garden cuttings with a bug snug, an easy-to-make sculptural structure made of twigs and stems that provides a place for insects and invertebrates to overwinter....
Meet the Keepers
Meet the Keepers
Plan your visit to include a stop in the Charlotte Brody Discovery Garden for this special opportunity to meet the keepers of the bees, chickens and incredible edible plants in this garden area belove...
Walk on the Wild Side
Walk on the Wild Side
Join horticulture staff and experienced volunteers on a walk around the Blomquist Garden of Native Plants to learn about connections between people, plants and place. Each month will feature a differe...
Mum’s the Word: Special Walking Tour of Show Chrysanthemums (Nov.)
Mum’s the Word: Special Walking Tour of Show Chrysanthemums (Nov.)
Mums can be carefully cultivated to produce amazingly large blooms in a spectacular range of flower types and colors. Learn what makes display mums so special as Michelle Rawlins, Ruth Mary Meyer Japa...
A Festival of Fabulous Mums
A Festival of Fabulous Mums
Enjoy an explosion of color this fall during A Festival of Fabulous Mums at Duke Gardens. Exhibition mums will create a dazzling floral display outdoors at the Ruth Mary Meyer Japanese Garden in the C...
A Festival of Fabulous Mums
A Festival of Fabulous Mums
Enjoy an explosion of color this fall during A Festival of Fabulous Mums at Duke Gardens. Exhibition mums will create a dazzling floral display outdoors at the Ruth Mary Meyer Japanese Garden in the C...
A Festival of Fabulous Mums
A Festival of Fabulous Mums
Enjoy an explosion of color this fall during A Festival of Fabulous Mums at Duke Gardens. Exhibition mums will create a dazzling floral display outdoors at the Ruth Mary Meyer Japanese Garden in the C...
Rethinking Seasonal Cleanup: Why Less Can Be More for Wildlife (in person)
Rethinking Seasonal Cleanup: Why Less Can Be More for Wildlife (in person)
Are you unsure about when to cut back dormant plants or how many leaves to leave behind? Perhaps you've heard about stem-nesting bees or insects that overwinter in fallen foliage and want to support t...
Rethinking Seasonal Cleanup: Why Less Can Be More for Wildlife (virtual)
Rethinking Seasonal Cleanup: Why Less Can Be More for Wildlife (virtual)
Are you unsure about when to cut back dormant plants or how many leaves to leave behind? Perhaps you've heard about stem-nesting bees or insects that overwinter in fallen foliage and want to support t...
Meet the Keepers
Meet the Keepers
Plan your visit to include a stop in the Charlotte Brody Discovery Garden for this special opportunity to meet the keepers of the bees, chickens and incredible edible plants in this garden area belove...
Botanical Quilt Blocks
Botanical Quilt Blocks
Learn to hand-stitch a garden-inspired quilt block in this two-hour class with Julia Gartrell, artist and creator of the Radical Repair Workshop, that will prepare you for a cozy winter season. Usin...
Woody Ethnobotany
Woody Ethnobotany
Spend an afternoon learning about woody plants with ethnobiologist marc williams. This in-person intensive class begins with a presentation about major tree and shrub families. Then head outside on a ...
Cultivating Capacity: Plant Meditation and Sculpture
Cultivating Capacity: Plant Meditation and Sculpture
In this accessible workshop, participants use sculpture and plant wisdom as pathways to self-discovery. Led by sculptor and certified mindfulness instructor Meg Stein (CFP, MFA), this workshop invit...
The Story of Stone in the Culberson Asiatic Arboretum
The Story of Stone in the Culberson Asiatic Arboretum
Join Paul Jones, founding curator of the Culberson Asiatic Arboretum, for a walking tour of some of the most iconic stone features found in the arboretum. You’ll hear the stories behind the stone, i...
Walk on the Wild Side
Walk on the Wild Side
Join horticulture staff and experienced volunteers on a walk around the Blomquist Garden of Native Plants to learn about connections between people, plants and place. Each month will feature a different seasonal topic related to gardening with native plants.
Seed Starting for Fall and Winter Vegetables
Seed Starting for Fall and Winter Vegetables
The height of summer is the time to start planning your fall and winter vegetable garden. Starting your vegetables from seed gives you the opportunity to expand the varieties of plants you grow, including unique varieties you can’t find in a grocery store. Imagine cri...
Midday Meander
Midday Meander
Join Kavanah Anderson, director of learning and community engagement at Duke Gardens, for a conversational stroll in the garden that deepens your relationship with plants. Swap plant stories, dig into horticultural history, question what you know and practice multisenso...
Steeped in Culture: A Summer Season Chinese Tea Tasting
Steeped in Culture: A Summer Season Chinese Tea Tasting
Experience tea as a social beverage and cultural tradition on this seasonal sensory journey with Violet Yang of Forest Well Tea. Participants will taste four different Chinese loose-leaf teas and be guided through experiencing the aromas, colors, textures and evolving f...
Botanical Bitters
Botanical Bitters
In our modern era, classic bitters such as Angostura are often splashed into a cocktail. These bitters have their roots in European culinary traditions of aperitifs or digestifs (think Cynar, Campari), which all contain secret blends of botanicals that were historically...
Walk on the Wild Side
Walk on the Wild Side
Join horticulture staff and experienced volunteers on a walk around the Blomquist Garden of Native Plants to learn about connections between people, plants and place. Each month will feature a different seasonal topic related to gardening with native plants.
Seed Starting for Fall and Winter Vegetables
Seed Starting for Fall and Winter Vegetables
The height of summer is the time to start planning your fall and winter vegetable garden. Starting your vegetables from seed gives you the opportunity to expand the varieties of plants you grow, including unique varieties you can’t find in a grocery store. Imagine cri...
Midday Meander
Midday Meander
Join Kavanah Anderson, director of learning and community engagement at Duke Gardens, for a conversational stroll in the garden that deepens your relationship with plants. Swap plant stories, dig into horticultural history, question what you know and practice multisenso...
Steeped in Culture: A Summer Season Chinese Tea Tasting
Steeped in Culture: A Summer Season Chinese Tea Tasting
Experience tea as a social beverage and cultural tradition on this seasonal sensory journey with Violet Yang of Forest Well Tea. Participants will taste four different Chinese loose-leaf teas and be guided through experiencing the aromas, colors, textures and evolving f...
Botanical Bitters
Botanical Bitters
In our modern era, classic bitters such as Angostura are often splashed into a cocktail. These bitters have their roots in European culinary traditions of aperitifs or digestifs (think Cynar, Campari), which all contain secret blends of botanicals that were historically...
Questions about upcoming events?
Please contact us at 919-668-1707 or GardensEducation@duke.edu.