Green Thumbs Invited to Let Knowledge Bloom at Rutgers Home Gardeners School

Gardening enthusiasts are invited to register for the upcoming Rutgers Home Gardeners School to be held from 9 a.m.-4 p.m. on Saturday, March 19, 2016, at the Rutgers University Cook/Douglass campus in New Brunswick, N.J. This year marks the 40th offering of this annual event, which many attendees come back for year after year!

Designed to offer “something for everyone” seeking a greener thumb, the Rutgers Home Gardeners School is made up of 35 individual workshop sessions covering a wide array of horticulture topics. This format allows attendees to select the workshops that are most relevant to their gardening interests in order to create their own unique, customized schedule for this fun day of learning. Dynamic speakers from commercial horticulture and landscape design firms, as well as faculty and staff from Rutgers Cooperative Extension (RCE), provide attendees with valuable opportunities to learn from seasoned professionals with a wealth of knowledge and experience.

Workshop topics for the 40th Annual Home Gardeners School include perennial favorites, such as canning fruits and vegetables, easy drip irrigation, composting, and pruning, as well as 23 brand new offerings to keep the content fresh and timely for returning attendees. Subjects for the new workshops include basic soil science, gardening in small spaces, all about roses, and flowering shrubs, to name just a few.

A special lunchtime keynote discussion will focus on the work being done at Rutgers to rediscover flavor in strawberries and tomatoes, presented by William Hlubik and Peter Nitzsche of RCE.

The registration fee for this event is $75, but a special early registration discount price of $60 is being offered through March 10. An additional discount is also available for Master Gardeners. Participants can purchase a $10 box lunch when registering or bring their own bag lunch. Pre-registration is recommended.

For more information or to register, visit www.cpe.rutgers.edu/hgs or call the Rutgers Office of Continuing Professional Education at 848-932-9271.