By Jan Little
Autumn brings change to our world: cooler temperatures, glorious fall foliage and ripening fruit. Along with these annual markers is a return to school schedules and the rush of activity helping your children prepare for that important first day of school.
There is a flurry of activity in nature as well. Trees and plants are pushing their energy into fruits and seeds to send generations into the future. Animals and insects are playing their role by collecting and distributing the fruits and seeds. Some will be eaten over the course of the winter, while other seeds will germinate next spring to make their leap into the future. Wintertime shelters are being built, stores of honey accumulating, caches of berries and seeds hoarded.
Autumn is a quieter show than the springtime bombastic arrival of flowers and leaves; this is a season to savor as you seek out evidence of its role. It’s a time to give your child the thrill of discovery that comes when picking fruit directly from a plant, watching a squirrel bury acorns, or collecting leaves of many colors.
Duke Gardens offers a number of autumn programs and events that will help you celebrate the season with your family. Beginning in early September, “Sprouts” (children ages 3 and 4) and “Seedlings” (children ages 4 and 5) will learn about nature by exploring wild and garden areas in Nature for Sprouts or Nature for Seedlings. Registration is required.
For the entire family, autumn events kick off with Discovery Garden Family Workshops, in which you will learn about planting and harvesting in an edible garden. Please call to register. The Charlotte Brody Discovery Garden also takes center stage during Discovery Day’s free drop-in events, including demonstrations, experiments, storytelling and hands-on projects on Saturday, Sept. 7, from 10 a.m. to noon.
Autumn tales will captivate children in Nature Storytime, scheduled for Thursday and Saturday mornings and open to all. Children will also find an outlet for their creativity in activities offered on Fridays from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at our free Nature Ranger Cart. No registration is required for these two programs.
Add nature to your list this autumn and help your child explore the wonders of the season at Duke Gardens.
Sarah P. Duke Gardens creates and nurtures an environment in the heart of Duke University for learning, inspiration and enjoyment through excellence in horticulture. The Gardens receives roughly half of its operating budget from Duke University. The rest comes from people like you, who value all that this public botanic garden has to offer. Duke Gardens is at 420 Anderson St. in Durham, N.C.
Jan Little is Duke Gardens’ director of education and public programs. For information about Gardens programs, please go to gardens.duke.edu.
Wednesday, August 28, 2013
Fall planning for your garden and beyond
By Jan Little
Autumn is not far off—a time of year that gardeners look forward to throughout the growing season.
Autumn signals that it is garden payoff time. It’s an amazing festival of vegetables, fruits and flowers, with enough zucchini to give away, canning to complete, and freezing to save some produce for winter treats. It means the work of the season is slowing down and the temperatures are cooling for enjoyable days or evenings in your garden.
And it’s time to begin dreaming about next year.
While you are finishing up the season, autumn is also a great time to plant new perennials, bulbs and woody plants. Consider taking a class at Duke Gardens to brush up on new plant selections and different gardening strategies, or to introduce your children to the wonders of growing plants.
Duke Gardens has an array of programs, festivals and classes planned for this fall, including several festivals to celebrate the 75th anniversary of Duke Gardens' dedication in April 1939. The celebrations pay tribute to the years of Duke Gardens – just imagine the changes this garden has witnessed since 1939! But, more importantly, these events honor the community’s care and affection for the Gardens. Join us through April 2014 to celebrate 75 years of growing this garden.
Asian Arts Day on Sept. 22 will bring a range of performers, artists and instructors to showcase Asian culture with tea gatherings in the Sister Cities Tea Pavilion, storytelling, haiku poetry, martial arts demonstrations, drumming and other activities. Enjoy strolling through the Culberson Asiatic Arboretum while you participate in Asian Arts Day activities from noon to 3 p.m.
Vegetables and growing take center stage at the Fall Festival in the Charlotte Brody Discovery Garden, with activities for the entire family. Join us for pollinator games, beekeeping demonstrations, planting activities and salsa tastings, along with gardening information from Durham County Master Gardeners, SEEDS, and the Beekeeping Club of Durham. The program is scheduled for Sunday, Oct. 13, from noon to 3 p.m., with a finale provided by the Riverside High School Orchestra performing its fall concert selections.
Our popular Fall Plant Sale will be Saturday, Sept. 28, from 9 a.m. to noon, featuring rare and unusual plants – along with the tried and true – that every southern garden should include. Doris Duke Center Gardens curator Jason Holmes offered a sneak peek of several plants that will be featured. Two examples: blue wild indigo (Baptisia australis) and climbing aster (Ampelaster carolinianus), are beautiful native perennial plants for your garden. Jason also reminds gardeners that the spring show of flowering bulbs is dependent upon fall planting of those bulbs. Join us at the plant sale to find your fall favorites.
Young gardeners will explore nature and gardening in several programs, beginning with Nature for Sprouts, which introduces nature to your children through songs, stories, creative projects and garden adventures. This class, which includes both children and parents, meets for four Fridays, beginning Sept. 6, from 10:30-11:30 a.m.
For more information, please go to gardens.duke.edu or call 919-668-1707. We hope you enjoy your autumn—both in Duke Gardens and in your own garden.
Sarah P. Duke Gardens creates and nurtures an environment in the heart of Duke University for learning, inspiration and enjoyment through excellence in horticulture. The Gardens receives roughly half of its operating budget from Duke University. The rest comes from people like you, who value all that this public botanic garden has to offer. Duke Gardens is at 420 Anderson St. in Durham.
Jan Little is Duke Gardens’ director of education and public programs. For information about Gardens programs, please go to gardens.duke.edu.
Autumn is not far off—a time of year that gardeners look forward to throughout the growing season.
Autumn signals that it is garden payoff time. It’s an amazing festival of vegetables, fruits and flowers, with enough zucchini to give away, canning to complete, and freezing to save some produce for winter treats. It means the work of the season is slowing down and the temperatures are cooling for enjoyable days or evenings in your garden.
And it’s time to begin dreaming about next year.
While you are finishing up the season, autumn is also a great time to plant new perennials, bulbs and woody plants. Consider taking a class at Duke Gardens to brush up on new plant selections and different gardening strategies, or to introduce your children to the wonders of growing plants.
Duke Gardens has an array of programs, festivals and classes planned for this fall, including several festivals to celebrate the 75th anniversary of Duke Gardens' dedication in April 1939. The celebrations pay tribute to the years of Duke Gardens – just imagine the changes this garden has witnessed since 1939! But, more importantly, these events honor the community’s care and affection for the Gardens. Join us through April 2014 to celebrate 75 years of growing this garden.
Asian Arts Day on Sept. 22 will bring a range of performers, artists and instructors to showcase Asian culture with tea gatherings in the Sister Cities Tea Pavilion, storytelling, haiku poetry, martial arts demonstrations, drumming and other activities. Enjoy strolling through the Culberson Asiatic Arboretum while you participate in Asian Arts Day activities from noon to 3 p.m.
Vegetables and growing take center stage at the Fall Festival in the Charlotte Brody Discovery Garden, with activities for the entire family. Join us for pollinator games, beekeeping demonstrations, planting activities and salsa tastings, along with gardening information from Durham County Master Gardeners, SEEDS, and the Beekeeping Club of Durham. The program is scheduled for Sunday, Oct. 13, from noon to 3 p.m., with a finale provided by the Riverside High School Orchestra performing its fall concert selections.
Our popular Fall Plant Sale will be Saturday, Sept. 28, from 9 a.m. to noon, featuring rare and unusual plants – along with the tried and true – that every southern garden should include. Doris Duke Center Gardens curator Jason Holmes offered a sneak peek of several plants that will be featured. Two examples: blue wild indigo (Baptisia australis) and climbing aster (Ampelaster carolinianus), are beautiful native perennial plants for your garden. Jason also reminds gardeners that the spring show of flowering bulbs is dependent upon fall planting of those bulbs. Join us at the plant sale to find your fall favorites.
Young gardeners will explore nature and gardening in several programs, beginning with Nature for Sprouts, which introduces nature to your children through songs, stories, creative projects and garden adventures. This class, which includes both children and parents, meets for four Fridays, beginning Sept. 6, from 10:30-11:30 a.m.
For more information, please go to gardens.duke.edu or call 919-668-1707. We hope you enjoy your autumn—both in Duke Gardens and in your own garden.
Sarah P. Duke Gardens creates and nurtures an environment in the heart of Duke University for learning, inspiration and enjoyment through excellence in horticulture. The Gardens receives roughly half of its operating budget from Duke University. The rest comes from people like you, who value all that this public botanic garden has to offer. Duke Gardens is at 420 Anderson St. in Durham.
Jan Little is Duke Gardens’ director of education and public programs. For information about Gardens programs, please go to gardens.duke.edu.
Share your Duke Gardens memories
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It was a rainy July day at Duke Gardens—not the sort of day that brings many visitors. But Henrietta Riggs Jackson wasn’t just any visitor. And to her, no amount of rain could douse the pleasure she felt standing in the Frances P. Rollins Overlook, reliving some of the most precious memories of her life.
Laid out before her were the Terrace Gardens, where Henrietta spent countless hours as a Duke student strolling, studying, admiring the flowers and talking with fellow Duke student Lester P. Jackson Jr.
Just below her, by the fish pool at the foot of the Terrace Gardens—that’s where Lester proposed. They married in 1945, while still students.
Lester died eight years ago. But these Gardens memories were important to him, too. The night before her visit, Henrietta found Lester’s wallet, which contained no fewer than six photos of the two of them posing in the Gardens back in 1945. Lester had carried those memories around in his pocket all those decades, just as she carried them in her heart.
Henrietta, now 92, smiled through tears as she walked to various spots and recalled those enchanting days.
We love hearing stories like Henrietta’s, especially now, as Duke Gardens approaches the 75th anniversary of the dedication of the Terrace Gardens in April 1939.
Did you fall in love here? Did you develop a passion for gardening? Did you play here as a child, or learn here how seeds become trees or caterpillars become butterflies? Did you walk through the paths to shake off the stresses of school or work days in Durham? What spots became your favorites?
Duke Divinity School student Nikki Raye Rice is just now discovering the benefits of having a serene garden as part of her campus.
“When I feel disembodied by ideas and abstract concepts, Duke Gardens brings me back to myself by celebrating the beauty of nature,” Nikki wrote to us.
Duke alumnus Ryan Bird, an engineering student, gravitated toward the Gardens in the last two years of his time here, taking daily walks to get his thoughts together.
“It was in the Gardens … where I began to really think about the world and my place in it,” he wrote. “It was in the Gardens that I began to question the career path laid out in front of me, and where I began to dream of deeper ambitions.”
Volunteer Thomas Harding has come to the Gardens almost daily for 10 years.
“Through my commerce with the beauty of the Gardens, I feel a sanguine renewal of life (not only emotionally but physically; for the moment I reach the conifers that stand like kindly, salutary sentinels near the entry way on Anderson, the air has a purity that it does not have outside the Gardens),” he wrote.
We would love for you to think about your connection to Duke Gardens—memories and current pleasures—and share them with us. Brief thoughts or long essays—all are welcome. You may post to our Facebook page (facebook.com/dukegardens), use the fill-in form on the “contact us” page at gardens.duke.edu.
We look forward to hearing your stories. And we hope to see you soon at Duke Gardens, as we celebrate the past 75 years with a series of special events beginning this fall, and as we look forward to a future of continued growth and beauty.
Sarah P. Duke Gardens creates and nurtures an environment in the heart of Duke University for learning, inspiration and enjoyment through excellence in horticulture. Duke Gardens receives roughly half of its operating budget from Duke University. The rest comes from people like you, who value all that this public botanic garden has to offer. Duke Gardens is at 420 Anderson St.
For more information about Duke Gardens, or to become a member, please go to gardens.duke.edu.
It was a rainy July day at Duke Gardens—not the sort of day that brings many visitors. But Henrietta Riggs Jackson wasn’t just any visitor. And to her, no amount of rain could douse the pleasure she felt standing in the Frances P. Rollins Overlook, reliving some of the most precious memories of her life.
Laid out before her were the Terrace Gardens, where Henrietta spent countless hours as a Duke student strolling, studying, admiring the flowers and talking with fellow Duke student Lester P. Jackson Jr.
Just below her, by the fish pool at the foot of the Terrace Gardens—that’s where Lester proposed. They married in 1945, while still students.
Lester died eight years ago. But these Gardens memories were important to him, too. The night before her visit, Henrietta found Lester’s wallet, which contained no fewer than six photos of the two of them posing in the Gardens back in 1945. Lester had carried those memories around in his pocket all those decades, just as she carried them in her heart.
Henrietta, now 92, smiled through tears as she walked to various spots and recalled those enchanting days.
We love hearing stories like Henrietta’s, especially now, as Duke Gardens approaches the 75th anniversary of the dedication of the Terrace Gardens in April 1939.
Did you fall in love here? Did you develop a passion for gardening? Did you play here as a child, or learn here how seeds become trees or caterpillars become butterflies? Did you walk through the paths to shake off the stresses of school or work days in Durham? What spots became your favorites?
Duke Divinity School student Nikki Raye Rice is just now discovering the benefits of having a serene garden as part of her campus.
“When I feel disembodied by ideas and abstract concepts, Duke Gardens brings me back to myself by celebrating the beauty of nature,” Nikki wrote to us.
Duke alumnus Ryan Bird, an engineering student, gravitated toward the Gardens in the last two years of his time here, taking daily walks to get his thoughts together.
“It was in the Gardens … where I began to really think about the world and my place in it,” he wrote. “It was in the Gardens that I began to question the career path laid out in front of me, and where I began to dream of deeper ambitions.”
Volunteer Thomas Harding has come to the Gardens almost daily for 10 years.
“Through my commerce with the beauty of the Gardens, I feel a sanguine renewal of life (not only emotionally but physically; for the moment I reach the conifers that stand like kindly, salutary sentinels near the entry way on Anderson, the air has a purity that it does not have outside the Gardens),” he wrote.
We would love for you to think about your connection to Duke Gardens—memories and current pleasures—and share them with us. Brief thoughts or long essays—all are welcome. You may post to our Facebook page (facebook.com/dukegardens), use the fill-in form on the “contact us” page at gardens.duke.edu.
We look forward to hearing your stories. And we hope to see you soon at Duke Gardens, as we celebrate the past 75 years with a series of special events beginning this fall, and as we look forward to a future of continued growth and beauty.
Sarah P. Duke Gardens creates and nurtures an environment in the heart of Duke University for learning, inspiration and enjoyment through excellence in horticulture. Duke Gardens receives roughly half of its operating budget from Duke University. The rest comes from people like you, who value all that this public botanic garden has to offer. Duke Gardens is at 420 Anderson St.
For more information about Duke Gardens, or to become a member, please go to gardens.duke.edu.
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