GreenShare Day ~ April 3, 2010

This Saturday is Greenshare Day at the Roger Williams Park Botanical Center, and the Rhode Island Rose Society is part of the day. 

Greenshare day is like a mini-convention with amazing classes for the public on all kinds of gardening themes, and with local horticultural societies on hand to provide information to the public.

If you aren't registered for a class, entrance to the Botanical Center is $3, and the day is fulled with activity, whether or not you take some of the fee-based classes.  There are classes for adults and classes for families. The information tables are incredibly informative and devoted purely to gardening, no commercial vendors of mops, ladders or anything like that. Here are the groups on display:

• Ask a Master Gardener
• Ask a Master Composter
• RI Begonia Society
• The Worm Ladies
• RI Water Lady (rain barrels)
• RI Rose Society
• NE Carnivorous Plant Society
• RI Wild Plant Society

There is also  free soil testing provided by URI Master Gardeners. Simply bring a sample(s) of your soil in a plastic bag or container to the event. Soil testers will analyze samples throughout the day. URI's Learning Landscape program will provide a children's activity all day.

Here are the classes ~ fees run from $30 for half-day that includes two classes (for the family classes, that fee covers 1 adult and 1 child per $30 -- there are lots of take-home materials) to $45 for the whole day and 4 classes. Preregistration is over, so just show up!

For families:

• “Bucket Gardening”
• “Carnivorous Plants”

For adults:

• “Compost 101”
• “Companion Planting”
• “Nurturing the Organic Bounty”
• “Harvesting, Cooking & Preserving” with local cooking celeb Frank Terranova
•  host of NBC’s “Cooking with Class”

See this link to find out more about the classes and activities.