Take a visual tour of some of England’s most celebrated estates with historic features and layers of plantings, long perennial borders, vegetable potagers, walled enclosures, old roses and more, including London’s Kew Garden and destinations in the Cotswolds, Sussex and Kent; the National Trust’s Sissinghurst Castle and Woolbeding Gardens, and West Dean College near Chichester. Learn how these estates are preserving their unique heritage at the same time they embrace change.

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Take a break from mud season and join us on a slide show of royal palaces and parks in Madrid, Barcelona, Granada, and Seville. We’ll visit the royal palaces of the Alhambra in Granada, Spain’s most visited cultural landmark and a UNESCO World Heritage site, which includes the restored Fountain of the Lions and the Palacio de Generalife with its famed water channel courtyard and stone mosaics. The Alcazar in Seville, Gaudi’s masterworks in Barcelona, and the Royal Gardens in Madrid near the Prado Museum are some of the other landscapes on this tour. Centuries of architectural detail and ongoing conservation work keep these buildings and gardens alive.

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Celebrate the season or Mother’s Day with a pretty arrangement of daffodils and multi-colored tulips from my cutting garden plus flowering stems, fresh greens, and seasonal blooms from area growers. Bring a medium-size vase, a pair of pruners, and an old shirt or apron. Feel free to bring flowers from your own garden to embellish your creation. Limited to 8. $45

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Want to garden more ecologically? North American plants like coneflowers, phlox, and asters support wildlife and are low maintenance, drought tolerant, and tough. We’ll look at some of my favorite varieties including new cultivars that are worth growing, plants for shade and low light conditions, groundcovers, great combinations for naturalistic landscapes, and how to integrate ornamental grasses like switchgrass or little bluestem into the mix for texture, seasonality, and winter interest.

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Go beyond forsythia and look at other plants that can bring added color and beauty to your garden at winter's end – shadbush, redbud, magnolia, lilac, woodland phlox, wildflowers and a rainbow of bulbs suitable for the Northeast including some lesser known varieties. Take a virtual tour through lush gardens, learn how to use more native plants and spring blooming shrubs beneficial to pollinators, and consider how layering certain key perennials can create a glorious opening performance in April and May.

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Learn about a wide variety of woody shrubs that can bring structure to mixed borders, create a privacy hedge, or renew a foundation planting. From dwarf sizes to large specimens including some new introductions, this slide talk will tour you through outstanding native selections that benefit wildlife and look good in multiple seasons.

Offered through the Friends of the UVM Hort Farm online. Counts toward Master Gardener continuing education hours. Free to Friends members; $10 general public.

Since the pandemic began in 2020 our gardens have become places of refuge and renewal. Making outdoor spaces more restorative will be our focus as we look at landscapes of all sizes that offer spaces for comfort and privacy with water features, art objects with personal meaning, and layered textural and fragrant plantings that create a sense of enclosure. Online class. $15

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Love blue and purple? Get ideas for your garden with a look at plants with cool tones and learn how to plan for succession so you have a long period of saturated color. Wild hyacinth bulb, scilla, grape hyacinth, delphinium, clematis vine, hardy geranium, lilac and hydrangea shrubs, nepeta and late season asters like ‘October Skies’ will be highlighted along with a range of foliage plants with blue or purple leaves. Online class. $15

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A look at some of my favorite gardens in the U.K. with romantic rose-covered walls, kitchen gardens with topiary, pergolas, broad walks and intimate courtyards, and stunning borders including the Broad Walk at Royal Botanic Gardens Kew photographed in the height of summer bloom. In addition we’ll look around the RHS Chelsea Flower Show in London and see fabled country estates including Hidcote Manor, Barnsley House, and Rodmarton Manor in the Cotswolds. From classicism to cutting edge design you’ll see a range of styles sure to inspire a trip of your own.

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Voted one of Maine’s top attractions by Trip Advisor, the Coastal Maine Botanic Gardens at Boothbay is a gem worth exploring along an inlet of the rocky Atlantic shoreline. With copious natural stone features, a children’s garden and classroom cottage, sensory spiral maze, woodland fairy garden, demonstration kitchen garden, art installations and more, CMBG is one of my favorite places. Get ideas about planning a visit this summer once travel opens up again with Covid safe protocols in place.

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A virtual tour of Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, a National Historic Landmark, including the restored long terrace vegetable garden and Tufton Farm a few miles away which houses the Center for Historic Plants, a supplier of heirloom seeds. From there we visit the varied gardens at Colonial Williamsburg which showcase plants and garden styles of the colonial period. My visit to these important sites took place during Virginia’s Historic Garden Week a couple years ago. Classic potting and tool sheds, fencing, outdoor furniture, and spring flowering plants were all photographed for the feature articles I wrote for HOUZZ.

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Celebrate the vernal equinox with a look at lush gardens and forests and learn about the early bloomers of the Northeast that can add layers of color and fragrance to your gardens - wild bloodroot, woodland phlox ‘Clouds of Blue’, early tulips and other ephemeral bulbs, and woody plants like redbud (Cercis canadensis), shadbush (Amelanchier sp.) and more - for shade or sun. Spring is more than yellow forsythia - it’s time to branch out!

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Paris - a history lover’s dream and for many, the most beautiful metropolis in the world. Tour the City of Light and discover its secret garden hideaways and famous public parks including the Tuilleries, the Luxembourg Gardens, Notre Dame cathedral, the Petit Palais, and many squares and courtyards near the Seine with historic architecture and cultural importance. From knot gardens to climbing roses, topiaries, formal allees, classical sculptures and the modern vertical gardens at Musee Branly - see why Paris continues to impress and get ideas for bringing some Parisian chic to your home garden.

Program offered through Access CVU.

For me good design is often about form and foliage - flowers are secondary. Plants with interesting leaves bring depth, contrast, and delight to our beds and borders - we’ll look at a range of shrubs, trees, and herbaceous plants that are garden worthy and offer a range of colors from acid yellow to silver, caramel, steel blue, orange, carmine, and burgundy, in all sizes. Learn how to design around foliage and rethink your color combinations for three seasons of beauty.

This program is offered by Access CVU.

Looking to make your gardens more habitat-friendly? Do you have beehives and want to improve honey yield? Learn how to build biodiversity with cold-hardy plants suitable for Vermont including elderberry, viburnum, chokeberry, sweet pepperbush, and many herbaceous perennials which make stunning landscape plants. Take a close look at what’s growing in the Pollinator Garden at the University of Vermont’s Horticulture, Education & Research Center in South Burlington and get a tour of my home garden which is certified as a Backyard Habitat with the National Wildlife Federation and supports a very busy beehive.

This program is offered by the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute of the University of Vermont.

England’s Cotswolds region is home to world famous estates, many part of the National Trust and open to the public including Hidcote Manor, Kiftsgate, Rodmarton Manor, and Barnsley House, the home of designer Rosemary Verey who wrote about plants and garden design in numerous books which are considered classics today (her former estate is now an upscale boutique hotel). Look closely at the elements that make up a British garden - long perennial borders, herbs, vegetable potagers, topiary and sculpture, walled enclosures, rambling paths, old roses and more - and get some ideas for how to transform your own property on a small or large scale. Tea will be served after the slide talk!

This talk is sponsored by the Friends of the Horticulture Farm and will be held at the University of Vermont’s Horticulture Research and Education Center (Hort Farm).

A look at some of the best public gardens along the Hudson River including the Franklin D. Roosevelt National Historic Site in Hyde Park; Bellefield, a formal garden on the National Register of Historic Places originally designed by Beatrix Farrand; Blithewood and Montgomery Place at Bard College, the Rockefeller estate Kykuit with its mix of modern sculpture and classical architecture, and the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture, a world-class organic farm with a sustainability mission. See it all through the lens of landscape design and get inspired for your own road trip through the region.

Learn how to bring the vibrant colors beloved by Monet, VanGogh, Gertrude Jekyll and Georgia O’Keefe into your gardens to make them into a living canvas that brings beauty through the seasons!

Join me for this creative workshop aimed at helping invigorate your gardens through the strategic use of key plants. A comprehensive plant talk will look at best picks for varying site conditions including wet or dry, sun or shade, with a focus on cold-hardy varieties suited to our region. Don’t worry – we’ll talk annuals too! Then design your own garden using color guides and catalogs and take home a custom planting plan along with a detailed plant list handout for future reference.

This event takes place in the new classroom at Red Wagon Plants - it’s a great space to dig deeper into horticulture as you’ll be surrounded with blooming flowers and the rich smell of potting soil. Snacks and beverages are served in the cafe and are always delicious. $45 fee includes handouts, a custom planting plan, and refreshments.

Find ways to create peaceful, restorative spaces where you can breathe deep and reconnect with nature to find balance and serenity with scented herbs and flowers, lush foliage, and healing sounds. Make your own temple of beauty so you have a place to sit or work and learn how to dig deeper into your garden's potential no matter how small your property or budget. Plants with healing properties, water features of all sizes, comfortable furniture that withstands the elements, wind chimes, art forms, and ways to build enclosure and privacy are just some of the topics we’ll talk about. The yoga class that precedes the workshop will focus on strength building poses to get you ready for the season. Join me for a small reception after the slide talk and take a look at my garden photos in the studio gallery (up through early May). Free. Sponsored by Yoga Roots Studio.