Let Your Inner Gardener Bloom

Orla Swift spends her days at Sarah P. Duke Gardens editing publications, answering media requests and promoting programs as the marketing and communications director.

But on some Wednesday evenings in the Doris Duke Center, she is on a yoga mat, instructing workshop participants on the art and benefits of therapy ball massage.

“These massage techniques address aches that all of us get, from sitting at computers all day to driving, running, lifting objects, being sedentary, or even staring down at our iPhones and other devices for long periods,” Swift said.

The “Therapy Ball Massage for Gardeners” class is one of 71 unique programs offered by Duke Gardens this fall, and Duke employees receive 20 percent off the classes by showing their DukeCard ID.

The offerings range from yoga to organic vegetable gardening to a garden stroll focused on garden wildlife. Many classes are interactive, where participants, for example, can work with the soil as well as plant and stake.

The Gardens also started a “Zoom In” series this fall, which starts on Oct. 15 and allows faculty and staff to stop on their way home at the Gardens, learn about trees to grasses, and participate in a mini botany lesson before having to get home in time for dinner.

“We have 75 years of history to pull from in showing what can grow in North Carolina, what does well,” said Jan Little, the Duke Gardens director of education and public programs. “We’re used by faculty and staff for their own classes, but we’d like to turn around and have them learn more about the gardens so it enriches the ways they use it.

“If you’re trying to garden at your home, if you’re trying to landscape at home, this is where you can get that ground-level, practical information,” she added.

One of the Gardens’ other offerings, the Organic Vegetable Gardening workshop series, will discuss root crops, salad plantings and other cool season crops, as well as how to protect a garden from winter weather. The workshops include an indoor discussion and then an outdoor practice in the Charlotte Brody Discovery Garden.

Organic Vegetable Gardening starts Sept. 23 and is taught by Andy Currin, a Duke campus horticulturist. Many Duke Gardens staff members also teach various classes, including Sara Smith, Duke Gardens registrar and a Durham County master gardener.

Smith’s class, “Seeds of the Future,” teaches individuals how to save seeds from heirloom plants and preserve the genetic diversity in gardening. Part of the instruction is hands-on, when classmates learn how to harvest and preserve seeds for the following year.

“When you get with other gardeners, there’s just this enthusiasm that’s catching,” Smith said. “I’m just the conduit.”