Friends of the Regional Park Botanic Garden, Tilden Park, Berkeley

Classes, Field Trips & Workshops | Wayne Roderick Lectures | Special Events | Tours | Calendar

Our schedule of fun and informative classes, field trips, and workshops offers something for every native plant lover. Choose from our changing selection of classes on botany and natural history, field trips to wild California, and hands-on workshops on gardening, art, and photography.

To receive email notices of classes and other garden events, please join our email list.

SUMMER-FALL CLASSES 2013

To enroll, print out the Class Registration Form and send it with your check to:

John Rusk, 1354-B Lincoln St., Berkeley, CA 94702.

For additional information call John Rusk at 510-528-0526 or email at john@rusk.com.
(Advance registration is required for all classes. Drops in are not permitted.)

Backyard Fruit Trees: Summer Pruning
Saturday, June 1, 10 am-12 pm

Create Your Own Miniature Landscape or Beautiful Container with
California Native Plants: A Workshop
Saturday, June 15, 9 am-12 pm

Botanical Rambles in the Siskiyou/Klamath Mountains
(A special trip to benefit the Regional Parks Botanic Garden)
Thursday, June 27 through Monday July 1

Exploring the Flora of the Isolated Warner Mountains
(A special trip to benefit the Regional Parks Botanic Garden)
Thursday, July 25, through Monday, July 29

Endemic Taxa: Five Genera in Four Hours!
Saturday, August 3, 10 am-3 pm

Botany Basics: An Introduction to the Plant World
Every Sunday, August 4-November 17, 10 am-1 pm

Basketry Workshop: Coiled Straw or Rush Basket
Saturday, September 7, 9:30 am-3:30 pm

Fall Propagation of California Native Plants
Saturday, September 14, 10 am-1 pm

Botanizing California: Flora of the Monterey Peninsula
Friday and Saturday, September 27 and 28

The Amazing World of Lichens
Saturday, October 12, 10 am-3 pm

Botanizing California: Fall Color in the High Sierra at Carson Pass
Friday and Saturday, October 18 and 19

Drawing Leaves
Saturday, October 26, 9:30 am-12:30 pm

Backyard Fruit Trees: Summer Pruning
Fruit trees can be right at home in a native plant garden. Timed pruning offers a simple and revolutionary approach to fruit tree care: Winter prune for shape and summer prune to keep trees small and easy. This hands-on class covers the benefits of using pruning to keep fruit trees small, the basic mechanics of pruning, seasonal routines, and general maintenance. You will leave the workshop confident in your new pruning skills and relieved to discover you don't need a degree in agriculture to manage a fruit tree.

Saturday, June 1, 10 am-12 pm
Instructor: Ann Ralph
Location: Private garden in Berkeley
$40 members / $45 nonmembers

Create Your Own Miniature Landscape or Beautiful Container with California Native Plants: A Workshop
Join us for a hands-on workshop and create your own unique miniature landscape or potted accent plant that can be used as the perfect focal point for a patio, porch, or garden. Pete has been creating unique and beautiful containers using a very wide variety of native plants for over twenty years, and he has some new favorites that he will share at this workshop. Participants are encouraged to bring one or two containers of their own for the workshop. There will be a wide selection of plants and soil mixes to purchase at the workshop.

Saturday, June 15, 9 am-12 pm
Instructor: Pete Veilleux
Location: Regional Parks Botanic Garden
$40 members / $45 nonmembers

Endemic Taxa: Five Genera in Four Hours!
Several narrow endemic species call the North Bay home. Many are concentrated in either Marin, Sonoma, Napa, or Lake counties. We will consider the taxonomy and natural history of several members of the following genera: Ceanothus, Hesperolinon, Streptanthus, Navarretia, and Eriastrum. No previous acquaintance with these genera is required. After this class you will be on a first-name basis with all of them.

Saturday, August 3, 10 am-3 pm
Instructor: Dick O'Donnell
Location: Visitor Center, Regional Parks Botanic Garden
$35 members / $40 nonmembers
Please bring a lunch

Botany Basics: An Introduction to the Plant World
Plants and plantlike organisms, photosynthesizers and oxygenators par excellence, make life possible, occupying every possible ecological niche from oceans to mountain fastnesses, from deserts to junglelike rainforests, from marshes to arctic tundra. This ongoing series brings the widely varied aspects of these organisms into focus from widely different angles and perspectives.

Every Sunday, August 4-November 17, 10 am-1 pm
Instructor: Glenn Keator
Location: Visitor Center, Regional Parks Botanic Garden, with occasional field trips
Individual classes: $40 members / $45 nonmembers

Basketry Workshop: Coiled Straw or Rush Basket
In this hands-on workshop, we will use Harding grass or rush (Juncus) to make bowl-shaped baskets using a skep (beehive)-making technique. In several European traditions, large straw bowls are used as dough-rising baskets, while some deep straw baskets are used as beehives and swarm-catchers.

Saturday, September 7, 9:30 am-3:30 pm
Instructor: Charlie Kennard
Location: Visitor Center, Regional Parks Botanic Garden
$70 members / $80 nonmembers
Bring a sharp pocket knife, large water bowl, and small diagonal wire clippers if you have them.
Please bring a lunch

Fall Propagation of California Native Plants
October is a great month to collect and sow seeds of California natives, as many species need exposure to winter weather in order to germinate. This is also a good time to divide native iris clumps and take cuttings of many shrubs. We will explore all aspects of fall propagation in this demonstration/workshop. Materials will be provided.

Saturday, September 14, 10 am-1 pm
Instructor: Susan Ashley
Location: Visitor Center, Regional Parks Botanic Garden
$25 members / $30 nonmembers

Botanizing California: Flora of the Monterey Peninsula
The Monterey Peninsula, home to famous golf courses and early California history, is also a native plant hot spot, a place with sweeping pine forests, coastal bluff rock gardens, and wind-blown sand dunes. This two-day adventure will take us to some of the sites for species diversity and rare plants. We'll stay in Pacific Grove and wander into Point Lobos State Reserve, Huckleberry Preserve, restored sand dunes in Marina, and the now-available dunes and coastal scrub at Fort Ord.

Friday and Saturday, September 27 and 28
Instructor: Glenn Keator
$80 members / $90 nonmembers (does not include food or accommodations)

The Amazing World of Lichens
Are you interested in lichens? Do you want to know what they are, where they grow, how they reproduce, and why they are important? Then this is the workshop for you! In this introductory workshop, you will learn the basics of lichen biology and ecology. We will focus on recognizing the different lichen growth forms and the various lichen structures that are used to differentiate between species. The workshop includes a classroom lecture, hands-on demonstrations exhibiting lichen structures, and a walk through the garden to observe lichens in their natural habitats.

Saturday, October 12, 10 am-3 pm
Instructor: Shelly Benson
Location: Visitor Center, Regional Parks Botanic Garden
$50 members / $55 nonmembers
Please bring a lunch

Botanizing California: Fall Color in the High Sierra at Carson Pass
Home to rugged mountains and spectacular summer wildflowers, Carson Pass is beautiful at this quiet time of the year with golden aspens and the subtle colors of plants going dormant set against evergreen conifers and sparkling lakes. We'll hike to Winnemucca Lake and visit Luther Pass, where a fascinating bog/pond/meadow ecosystem holds unusual plants. We'll stay in adjacent Woodfords overnight and hike no more than five to six miles.

Friday and Saturday, October 18 and 19
Instructor: Glenn Keator
$80 members / $90 nonmembers (does not include food or accommodations)

Drawing Leaves
Drawing leaves can be a good way to increase our knowledge of native plants. By paying attention to the form and details, we can appreciate the beauty of nature better. We will be using graphite to draw the form, waves, edges, and veins of leaves. This will make them come alive. No experience needed. Come and enjoy a new look at leaves.

Saturday, October 26, 9:30 am-12:30 pm
Instructor: Lee McCaffree
Location: Visitor Center, Regional Parks Botanic Garden
$40 members / $45 nonmembers

PLEASE NOTE: Driving directions, supplies lists, and other relevant information will be provided upon registration.

INSTRUCTORS

Susan Ashley teaches propagation and nursery management at Merritt College in Oakland. She has operated a small backyard nursery in Berkeley for 19 years.

Shelly Benson is the president of the California Lichen Society and has been studying lichens for the past 14 years. She finds the lichen world incredibly fascinating, unique, and diverse. Shelly started teaching in order to spread the word about these amazing organisms.

Glenn Keator is a popular freelance instructor of botany in the Bay Area. He currently teaches, leads field trips, and provides docent instruction in botany for the Regional Parks Botanic Garden. He is the author of a number of books on native plants.

Charlie Kennard of San Anselmo is a long-time basket weaver and student of central California Indian and European techniques. He has taught for MAPOM, Point Reyes Field Seminars, U.C. Botanical Garden, in many schools, and at teacher trainings. Charlie also manages several habitat restoration projects for Friends of Corte Madera Creek Watershed.

Lee McCaffree is a botanical illustrator. She is co-coordinator and a primary instructor of the Filoli Botanical Art Certificate Program in Woodside, CA. Her work is included in the Hunt Institute of Botanical Documentation, Kew Gardens, and the Filoli Florilegium as well as in private collections. She created the East Bay CNPS plant sale poster for many years.

Dick O'Donnell retired from corporate life as an economist to devote his time to the study of the institutional life of plants, that is, the acquisition, distribution, and control of knowledge about plants. He has published several papers that touch on this subject. He has also published descriptions of new species.

Ann Ralph managed the fruit tree department at Berkeley Horticultural Nursery for ten years. Her pruning book, The Little Fruit Tree, will be available from Storey Publishing in 2014.

Pete Veilleux is owner of East Bay Wilds Native Plant Landscaping Services and Nursery in Oakland, a design, install, and maintenance company and native plant nursery. One of his goals is to help people experience a little of the harmony and beauty he sees when exploring the woods, meadows, and high rocky outcrops.

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