In this workshop, participants will engage in the meditative practice of writing haiku in the gardens. Haiku master Basho first advocated that we “learn about pines from the pine, and about bamboo from the bamboo.” Dwelling in nature is important to acquire haiku naturally. While there’s flora present, we can also pay attention to that subtle something like a swift breeze, a sonorous bird, unseen, or the aging tree. We will review the aesthetics of contemporary haiku writing and compose haiku on a traditional ginko walk through the gardens. All haiku experience levels are welcome, beginners too.

For ages 3-5 with a participating caregiver. Zip! Zoom! Slurp! Celebrate the tiny but mighty ruby-throated hummingbird with stories, craft, play, and a garden walk to see if we can spy this fast-flying friend and its favorite flowers.

Since its initial inception more than 30 years ago, Alan Weakley's Flora of the Southeastern United States has expanded to cover more than 10,000 plant species across 25 states. From printed books to digital PDFs, to a modernized suite of web and mobile apps, the Flora is an ever-evolving suite of tools and products that continue to facilitate and enhance botany across the southeast.

Join Alan and Southeastern Flora team members Michael Lee (Data Scientist, NCBG) and Scott Ward (Research Botanist, NCBG) as they provide an in-depth tour of FloraQuest: Carolinas and Georgia, a new mobile app designed for phone or tablet that helps users identify all wild-growing plants from North Carolina to Georgia. In this program, the flora team will demonstrate how to identify plants in FloraQuest using dichotomous keys, graphic keys, diagnostic photographs, and a botanical glossary. After their presentation, the Flora team will then show how to use botanical characters such as flower color, growth form, geographic location, and flowering month to identify plants in the diverse wildflower beds of the North Carolina Botanical Garden.

Join Dr. Alan Weakley, the director of the UNC Herbarium, as he shares his insights on the plant diversity of the longleaf pine ecosystems. Learn how these diverse and resilient forests, which span from Virginia to Texas, harbor many rare and endemic plants that may be part of the rich cultural heritage of the Indigenous peoples and are only now being recorded into the scientific literature.

Join other early childhood classroom and nonformal educators as we explore activities in the newly released Project Learning Tree Trees and Me: Activities for Exploring Nature with Young Children activity guide. Every participant will leave the workshop with a copy of the guide - a $25 value! This guide includes revised favorites and new activities with a focus on learning for youth ages 1-6. This workshop qualifies for Criteria I or II in the EE Certification Program (early childhood).