New Year, New Botany Courses!

Well, ok, it's not actually "new year"  yet, but they are now available for booking, so don't miss out!

Next year I will again be running three Tree ID courses for the FSC - Field Studies Council - at their London facility in Bushy Park, which is quite near to Hampton Court. And we all know a song about that, don't we children? (sings  "oh, the day Good King Henry got his Hampton Court") (What? Don't you remember that?  "Carry on Christmas" from 1969, available for viewing on youtube, if you google it. Go on, you know you want to!)

Er hem.

Right, back to the courses: in February I'm doing the incredibly hard Tree ID in Winter course, with impossible tasks such as identifying trees without any leaves. Actually, it's not that difficult, and is rather fun, once you get going. And my job is to get you going, so book yourself onto that one for a good start to the year.

In March you have another chance to attend my greatly-acclaimed Intro to Conifers course: conifers are a lot more interesting than you would think, and by the end of this course  you will be able to identify 23 genera of Conifers with ease. Honest.

March is a busy month for me, as I am also giving an evening talk to the Sunningwell Garden Club, as well as running a repeat of my one-day workshop on How To Be A  Successful Self-Employed Gardener, which was a hoot last time: one delegate submitted feedback that said it was worth the course fee just to see the demonstration of how to pee in public. Well, that's lovely, but I do hope they got more out of the course than just that one topic! (Although it did provoke rather a lot of giggling and shrieking, I must admit.) We haven't confirmed the date for that one, but it will be a Saturday in early March.

April is another evening talk, this time to the Wallingford Garden Club, and in May we have the very easy Tree ID in Summer course, which is pure enjoyment as  the leaves do make it fairly easy, once you know what you are looking for. If you struggle to tell the difference between an Oak and a Sycamore, come along to this course: it's fun, you will learn a lot, and it's very satisfying to be able to spot one tree from another.

Then in June comes a new course, How To Use A Dichotomous Key, which is an essential skill for anyone with the slightest interest in Botany, but it's a hard thing to learn. This course will take you by the hand and lead you gently through using botanical Keys, their uses, and their limitations.   Like all the ID courses, we'll be doing as much practical work as we can, so you can expect a lot of outdoor work, with our bottoms in the air!

More details of all these courses are on the Events page, just click on the tab above.