Friday, May 9, 2008 

GRAFTON — The Nature Museum at Grafton is offering a number of Wildflower and Garden programs in May. On Saturday, May 10 there are two programs, Pruning and Spring Maintenance Q&A which will take place from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. at The Nature Museum, 186 Townshend Road, Grafton and Spring Wildflower Walk which will take place from 9 to 11 a.m. at the Martin Sanctuary trailhead on Bemis Hill Road, outside of Saxtons River. Both of these programs are free to the public. During the Spring Wildflower Walk participants will learn to locate and identify six of the spring ephemeral wildflowers that are found in the Windmill Hill Pinnacle Association's Martin Sanctuary on Bemis Hill Road. Factors such as forest community type, canopy cover, and microtopography which affect the presence of these species will also be discussed. The walk is led by Paul "Hop" Hopkins, who did his graduate school thesis field work about spring ephemerals in this same area and who currently teaches science at The Grammar School in Putney.

The wildflower program is part of the Exploring Rockingham: Nature Out Our Backdoor series, which is made possible by a grant from TransCanada.

On Tuesday,

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May 20 The Nature Museum will host a program Under the Canopy: shade gardening with native plants from 7 to 8 p.m. at the The Homestead Room, in The Old Tavern in Grafton. Scott LaFleur, head horticulturalist for the New England Wildflower Society, will present this fascinating program about the vast array of native plant species that thrive in full and partial shade. This program is part of a series of garden programs that The Nature Museum is offering this year, for a complete brochure of this year-long series or for more information, call The Nature Museum at 802-843-2111, staff@nature-museum.org or www.nature-museum.org.