A tour of a nearby flower farm and class on arranging dahlias from there is among Longwood’s fall offerings.
Wild about dahlias? Want a new honey-laced cocktail? Willing to tackle expert-level floral design with celebrity florists?
Longwood Gardens has a class for you in its new fall lineup of online lessons.
The former du Pont family estate in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, announced Monday that its remote classes will include painting and sketching classes, a cocktail class, a focus on dahlias, landscape design and high-level floral design.
These are some of them. You can find a full list here.
Botanical Art: Painting with Pollinators: Sept. 29 and Oct. 13, 10 a.m. to noon. $59. Botanical artist Diana Heitzman will lead intermediate artists in this two-part course focused on painting native plants and their pollinators. The first focuses on a step-by-step how to create a painting depicting the connection between native plants and their pollinators from a scientific and artistic perspective. The second session dives into technique. Using a line drawing and color copy of Diana’s watercolor that will be mailed to a participant’s home prior to the course, follow Diana as she builds her painting in the first session. Students will upload an image of their work on it so Heitzman may critique and provide feedback.
Dazzling Dahlias. Sept. 30, 10 a.m.- noon or 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. $129. Mara Tyler of the Farm at Oxford first will give a virtual tour of her dahlia fields. Then she’ll lead a virtual hands-on workshop where students will create their own dahlia masterpiece using flowers from the farm, which will have to be picked up at Longwood before the classes.
Seed to Shaker: Cheers to the Bees. Sept. 30, 6–8 p.m. $89. Learn how to craft the perfect blend of herbal ingredients and honey in cocktails with Barefoot Botanicals and Caledonia Spirits. The online class will work on signature drinks created for it. A kit of herbal ingredients and honey will be delivered to the home of a participant before the class, with a list of additional ingredients and spirit recommendations.
Sketching for Floral Designers. Mondays, Oct. 4-18, 4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. $129. Knowing how to graphically represent your ideas and concepts to a client is imperative to success. During this three-part offering, floral designer and artist Jennifer Reed draws on her fine art background to share the process of creating a vision board, how to sketch designs of various sizes, and how best to represent different foliage and blooms.
Plants with a Purpose: Late Season Natives. Oct 5, 6 p.m. – 7:30 p.m. $179. Finding the right plants that add late summer interest to your landscape—as well as provide valuable pollen and nectar reserves for native pollinators—can be a challenge. Carrie Wiles of North Creek Nursery will show how to create an abundant landscape that lasts from late summer through the winter months by utilizing plants with late-season blooms, intriguing textures and benefits for native pollinators.
Floral Spotlight: In Season Fall Foraging. Oct. 6, 4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. $29. Whether it is finding intriguing fruits and vegetables from your own backyard or a local farm, Valerie McLaughlin will show you how to create a beautiful arrangement using your unusual fall finds. She will incorporate late-summer blossoms with easy-to-find branches, mosses and vines.
A Touch of Hollywood: Showstopping Floral Design. Oct. 14, 9 a.m. – 2:30 p.m. $259. HBO Max’s “Full Bloom” finalist Ace Berry known for his bold color choices and playful approach—and Kelly Shore of Petals by the Shore of Washington, DC—known for her passion for California-grown flowers—will teach this one day expert-level floral-design class. Participants will use unusual and unlikely blooms and foliage curated by Kelly and shipped to your front door. In addition to creating two designs inspired by Ace and Kelly’s work, classes will learn floral mastery tips and how to procure and prolong the life of blooms.
Asian-Inspired Garden Design. Oct. 28–Nov. 14, 4 p.m. – 6 p.m. $129. Learn about components of traditional and interpretive Asian gardens and how to adapt them. Gain an understanding of the similarities and differences among Chinese, Korean and Japanese gardens. Learn about rock placement with step-by-step construction approaches to the use of rocks in garden design as well as garden elements as walls, fences, walkways, lanterns and basins.
Betsy Price is a Wilmington freelance writer who has 40 years of experience, including 15 at The News Journal in Delaware.
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