Time has passed since I started down the garden path. And while gardening continues to be the never-ending story, quite often now I find that my role has shifted. While continuing as a student, one who learns, I have gained sufficient knowledge and experience that now I can also inform, instruct, teach. And it is my students who are, in large part, the reason I enjoy teaching gardening classes. There is a mutual pleasure that flows between teacher and student when information and ideas are shared.

I teach one-day personal enrichment and longer, certificate-level coursesat The New York Botanical Garden. Additionally, I speak at the spring and fall Rutgers Home Gardeners School in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and teach both for Rutgers Gardens and for the Office of Continuing Professional Education program of Cook College of Rutgers University. Primarily, these classes are formatted as slide-illustrated lecture and discussion, and, for some, demonstration .

While it is great teaching at the New York Botanical Garden, where I can take students out on the grounds to observe the extensive plant collections and visit the demonstration gardens, there are restrictions. For example, I'm sure it would be frowned upon if my students and I were to practice propagation, digging up and dividing plants, and students were then sent home with something to plant in their own garden. The more I thought about this situation, the more logical it seemed to offer classes at BelleWood Gardens.

It is the beginning and novice gardeners that I want to reach out to. They are the ones who are just now starting down the garden path, who will benefit the most from the sort of hands-on classes I envision teaching. In addition, just as I showed my own children some of the fun and magic of gardening, I thought I'd offer a few parent and child classes as well.

Each two-hour class is designed to provide an enjoyable learning experience. By limiting the size of these classes to no more than eight students, I can provide the personalized attention that is so important. Held at BelleWood Gardens in Frenchtown, New Jersey on Saturday mornings from 10:00 a.m. until noon, each class focuses on a different topic: practical pruning, container gardening, seasonal care of the garden, and more, topics such as propagation, coping with weeds (not all of which are wildflowers!), as well as composting - nature's recycling for the garden. My intention is to provide gardeners with the basic foundation of knowledge needed to build a good, strong base, which they can then build on themselves.