Adult Programs

Join horticulture staff and 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.

Bitters have been used for centuries as aperitifs or digestifs (think Cynar or Campari) and classic bitters such as Angostura are often dashed into our cocktails. Because our bodies co-evolved with wild bitter foods, the bitter flavor is also very important to our health. In this interactive workshop, learn from clinical herbalist Kelly Owensby of West of the Moon about the history of bitters and the fascinating health impact of bitter herbs in our body. Participants will experiment with 29 different herbal flavor profiles, learn the impact of different herbs and take home a custom crafted herbal bitters tincture to spritz into bubbly water as a summer survival strategy.

Late summer is peak time for beautiful produce in the Charlotte Brody Discovery Garden. Join horticulture staff on a walk to delight your senses and boost your gardening skills. Learn how this garden area is maintained by prioritizing sustainability and using different methods for growing edible plants while also supporting native wildlife.

Piedmont prairies are grassland ecosystems that once covered a substantial part of the rolling landscape of the Piedmont region that stretches from New Jersey to central Alabama, covering an area of approximately 80,000 square miles. This ecosystem, maintained through grazing and the controlled use of fire by the many Indigenous groups, began to vanish with the arrival of Europeans. Join Blomquist Garden of Native Plants curator Annabel Renwick to learn how widespread conservation efforts are now recognizing Indigenous wisdom in maintaining this ecosystem and how Annabel has rebuilt this prairie landscape at Duke Gardens with native ecotype wildflowers and grasses.

Tour the newly reimagined Carnivorous and Coastal Plain Plant Collection that features a variety of carnivorous plants native to North Carolina, including pitcher plants and Venus flytraps. Due to habitat loss, they are imperiled in their biologically rich native range just a few hours away from Duke Gardens. Join Maegan Luckett, horticulturist in the Blomquist Garden of Native Plants, to meet these and other fascinating plants that grow in moist, nutrient-poor soils, such as pond cypress (Taxodium ascendens), several species of bog orchids and the delightful orange milkwort (Senega lutea), also known as “Bog Cheetos.” Learn about the importance of conservation efforts to preserve these North Carolina treasures.

Built on the grounds of a former cotton plantation, the Tuskegee Institute, founded by Booker T. Washington, offered agricultural and industrial education as a strategy for Black self-determination. In his new book Afterlives of the Plantation: Plotting Agrarian Futures in the Global South, Duke University professor Dr. Jarvis C. McInnis charts a new account of Black modernity by centering Tuskegee’s vision of agrarian worldmaking. He traces the diasporic ties and networks of exchange that linked Black communities in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Although Washington is often regarded as an accommodationist, McInnis shows how artists, intellectuals and political leaders—including George Washington Carver, Jean Price-Mars, Zora Neale Hurston, Claude McKay and Marcus Garvey—adapted Tuskegee’s methods into dynamic strategies for liberation in places like Cuba, Puerto Rico, Haiti and Jamaica. A local land and farm advocate will join Dr. McInnis to discuss the contemporary dynamics of this groundbreaking book. Copies will be available for purchase while supplies last, and a book signing will take place following the discussion.

Focus on the shape, color, symmetry and texture of plants as you access a meditative state with your body. Sufia Ikbal-Doucet (they/them), herbalist & sovereignty doula, will guide participants to a state of deeper presence through creating botanical mandalas. Find a place of relaxation, improvisation and creativity as you deepen your practice of being with the potent ephemerality of plant beauty. This is one of three workshops in the series: Cultivating Mindfulness Through Plant Relationships, exploring creativity, deep presence, and deliberate beauty with plants. Register separately for each one. Look for additional programs on October 5 and October 26.