Tutor: Karen van Oostrum
Date: Monday 26 January 2026
Time: 10 am - 4 pm
Cost: £80
Location: Classroom


Curious about botany, but scared to give it a go? This new, 1-day course could be for you! Join Karen van Oostrum for a lively, interactive taster session, introducing you to the world of plants. Making use of the glasshouse collections, you will learn about the different groups of land plants and find out when they evolved; you will understand how plants are adapted to different environments, and see some plants of socio-economic importance. Back in the classroom there will be a variety of plant material to investigate, allowing you to get to grips with all the different parts of flowering plants. By the end of the day you will have discovered how fruits develop from flowers, and you will fully understand what ‘Native’ and ‘Non-native’ species are. So come along, and immerse yourself in a warming day of botanical discovery in the depths of winter!

Tutor: Margeaux Apple
Date: Wednesday 11 February 2026
Time: 10 am - 1 pm
Cost: £40
Location: Classroom


Identifying trees in winter often means that the traditional identification features such as leaves and flowers are not visible. We will look at the features which can be used to identify trees in winter and throughout the year. With the Botanic Garden’s wonderful tree collection as our backdrop, we will focus mainly on broad-leaved deciduous landscape trees, as well as looking at some evergreen conifers. We will discuss some basic concepts, tree anatomy and spend time around the Garden identifying trees and comparing features. This course will take place indoors and outdoors, so do check the forecast and dress appropriately.

Tutor: Sam Brockington & Nabil Ali
Date: Wednesday 25 February 2026
Time: 10 am - 4 pm
Cost: £85
Location: Classroom

This hands-on workshop brings together science and creativity to explore the world of natural dyes - co-taught between the Curator, who specialises in the science of plant pigments and our artist in residence. Participants will work with plants collected from the botanic garden and investigate the chemistry behind their colours, focusing on key pigment groups such as flavonoids, which contribute brilliance and UV protection; betalains, known for deep reds and purples; indigoids, responsible for classic blue tones; and carotenoids, which offer vivid yellows and oranges. Guided step by step, attendees will learn how to process these plants into dyes, inks, and paints, drawing on traditional techniques and recipes inspired by historical manuscripts and cultural practices. By the close of the session, participants will leave with beautifully coloured samples and a deeper understanding of the relationship between nature, chemistry and artistic expression.

Tutor: Raphaella Hull
Date: Saturday 25 April 2026
Time: 10 am - 1 pm
Cost: £40
Location: Classroom


A hidden network of fungi supports the plants around us, connecting their roots to the soil. These remarkable symbiotic fungi live inside plant roots, exchanging nutrients in partnerships that have persisted for hundreds of millions of years. Plant-fungi interactions are not only essential for plant growth – they also help build rich, dynamic soils, sequester carbon and have shaped the evolution of terrestrial ecosystems. In this half-day course, you’ll explore the secret world of plant-fungi relationships. Through a mix of lecture, a guided Garden tour and a hands-on microscope session, you’ll see this intimate partnership up close and learn how symbiotic fungi influence the plants and landscapes around us. Ideal for anyone curious about nature, gardening or the hidden fungal networks beneath our feet.

Tutor: Karen van Oostrum
Date: Thursday 30 April 2026 - Friday 01 May 2026
Time: 10 am - 4 pm
Cost: £155
Location: Classroom


This lively, informative, hands-on course offers complete beginners a relaxed introduction to the world of botany. With plenty of plant material to look at in the classroom, we will investigate the vegetative (leaves, stems and roots) and reproductive (flowers, fruits and seeds) parts of flowering plants, and start to understand the roles that they perform. Outside in the Garden we can visit the Rising Path to consider the domination of the angiosperms (flowering plants) in the broader context of the whole plant kingdom, and we will make use of the plant collections to explore plant adaptations and the variety of flower forms. There will be time to explore how to use a field guide, with the opportunity to practice and develop your own plant identification skills.

Tutor: Raphaella Hull
Date: Saturday 30 May 2026
Time: 10 am - 4 pm
Cost: £80
Location: Classroom


This one-day, beginner-friendly course offers an accessible introduction to the wild plants of Britain, looking at the botany and folklore of British native flora. The morning will cover the basics of botany and an overview of British flora – how to look closely at plants, recognise key features and understand their place in the landscape. In the afternoon, we’ll explore two native habitats represented in the Garden: fenland and chalk grassland. These contrasting environments provide a living classroom for discovering how plants adapt to different conditions. The day will finish with a look at the traditional uses and folklore of British natives, exploring the context in which these traditions and tales originated.

No prior knowledge of botany is required. The course builds on material covered in the 2025 Wild Garden series of guided walks and would be a perfect next step to develop your botanical knowledge.

Tutor: Ros Bennett
Date: Thursday 04 June 2026
Time: 10 am - 4 pm
Cost: £80
Location: Classroom


Trees make up one of the most impressive and beautiful features of our landscape - undoubtedly one of the most important aspects of our natural heritage. The different seasons are reflected dramatically in their changing appearance throughout the year. Late May is a great time for looking at broad-leaved trees as their leaves are fully formed and some will still be flowering. This course is concerned with their identification. We will explore the natural history of our native trees and look at how to recognise individual species. The main emphasis will be on trees that are native to Britain, but we will also pay attention to well-established, introduced species. We will practise working with different keys to identification. Part of each day will be spent in the classroom, sorting through specimens, and getting to grips with the terminology of the different shapes of leaves and the different floral designs of those that are still in flower. We shall also spend plenty of time exploring the Botanic Garden for our native trees to put into practice what we have learned.

Suitable for beginners

Tutor: Ros Bennett
Date: Thursday 25 June 2026
Time: 10 am - 4 pm
Cost: £80
Location: Classroom

The grass family is one of huge ecological and economic importance. Grasses play a dominant role in the landscape and provide food for a vast variety and number of animals including humankind. Their role in evolution and throughout history cannot be overestimated. The course is designed to give the beginner a sound foundation in identifying our native grasses. By mid-June many will be flowering when they are at their most attractive. We shall not be hunting for rarities or clocking up a long list of species, but rather we shall spend time consolidating an understanding and developing confidence to tackle their identification independently by learning to use keys and hand lenses. Spending plenty of time in the Garden, we will concentrate on the commoner species and focus particularly on their floral, rather than vegetative, features.

Suitable for beginners

Tutor: Ros Bennett
Date: Monday 06 July 2026
Time: 10 am - 4 pm
Cost: £80
Location: Classroom


By July many of our finest native plants have finished flowering, with the notable exception of glorious shows of thistles, ragworts, dandelions and mayweeds. The Asteraceae is the biggest flowering plant family in the world and is also the family that is most strongly represented in the British Isles. It therefore seems appropriate for anyone seriously interested in our native flora to feel confident in identifying them. Despite the apparent confusion between hawkweeds and hawkbits, mayweeds and chamomiles, this is not in fact a difficult task to do! Much of the course will be devoted to helping participants increase their confidence and competence in using scientific keys to identify the look-alikes that are such a notorious feature of this family. The Botanic Garden harbours a rich selection of members of this family, and studying garden species often helps to put our native species into better perspective.

This course is suitable for those who have previously shied away from these notorious look-alikes.

Tutor: Peter Wrapson
Date: Thursday 20 August 2026
Time: 10 am - 1 pm
Cost: £40
Location: Classroom


Latin has long been the shared language of botany, used to describe, classify and communicate about plants across the world. This half-day beginner-friendly course offers an accessible introduction to the fascinating language that underpins plant names and scientific classification. We’ll start with a brief history of botanical Latin and an exploration of how the binomial naming system developed to bring order to the plant kingdom. You’ll learn the basic grammar behind plant names, explore how these words reveal clues about a plant’s features and origins and cover the major Latin and Latin-derived terms used to describe plant morphology. The session will finish with a guided tour of the Garden, where you’ll put your new knowledge to the test by collectively interpreting plant labels and discussing the stories behind their names.

No prior knowledge of Latin or botany is required, though some familiarity with simple grammatical terms is desirable.

Tutor: Gwenda Kyd
Date: Tuesday 01 September 2026
Time: 10 am - 1 pm
Cost: £40
Location: Classroom


We have used plants in every part of our lives throughout history and wherever we are in the world. From a source of materials for building and making things to providing us with food and medicines, we have found ways to utilise our plant neighbours. Today, we understand much more about how and why plants have proved so useful. This workshop will explore some of these beneficial plants looking at why and how we’ve used them and also look forward at the prospects for their further uses. Weather permitting, we’ll visit a few of the plants growing in the Garden.

Tutor: Nathan Smith
Date: Thursday 24 September – Friday 25 September 2026
Time: 10 am - 4 pm
Cost: £155
Location: Classroom


Covering fungal biology and ecology, the course will also examine the wider cultural impact of fungi in art, music and religion. Participants will be taught what makes a fungus, the fundamentals of fungal identification and introduced to some of the key debates in mycology today. Nathan will also direct participants to available resources and local groups should they wish to continue their fungal adventures.

Suitable for beginners

Tutor: Ángela Cano
Date: Friday 30 October 2026
Time: 10 am - 4 pm
Cost: £80
Location: Classroom



A herbarium is like a time capsule made of plants – thousands of pressed and preserved specimens that tell the story of our planet’s plant life. The University of Cambridge curates one of the most significant of these, known to scientists as the University Herbarium (CGE). Among its more than one million specimens are plants collected by the man who transformed our understanding of life itself: Charles Darwin. But herbaria aren’t just about the past. They’re living, growing resources that support some of today’s most exciting research across many scientific fields. How are these plants collected, pressed and preserved to last for centuries? What botanical skills are needed to create scientifically valuable specimens?

Your tutor has travelled the world studying the great herbaria and collecting some of nature’s most challenging plants – from spiny giants to tough, long-lived succulents. She’ll show you how to read a plant to collect and press the perfect specimen and how to record the details and images that bring it to life. You’ll also follow the full journey of a herbarium specimen during a visit to the wonderful CGE – seeing how samples are mounted, digitised and added to the collection. And, of course, you’ll encounter historic specimens that form the very foundation upon which modern plant sciences stands.

Tutor: Matthew Jeffery
Date: Wednesday 18 November 2026
Time: 10 am - 1 pm
Cost: £40
Location: Classroom


In this half-day course, you will learn about the stages of seed collecting and storage that are important to consider from the perspective of a gardener, from assessing ripeness and determining quality to successfully storing seed at home using everyday equipment. You will get hands-on experience in the Botanic Garden with plants, fruits and seeds, as well as behind the scenes access to the Garden's seed processing and storage facilities. By the end of the session, you’ll be equipped with the knowledge to collect, clean and store seed successfully for use in your own garden, as well as an understanding of how the Botanic Garden conserves plant diversity through its seed collections and research.

Tutor: Ros Bennett
Date: Wednesday 25 November 2026 - Thursday 26 November 2026
Time: 10 am - 4 pm
Cost: £155
Location: Classroom


In winter, when there are very few flowers around and most of our native plants have lost their leaves, it is a wonderful opportunity to focus our attention on the conifers – most of which are evergreen and still bear cones. The British flora is remarkably poor in diversity of native conifers, but many introduced species form a major feature in our landscape. And here in the Botanic Gardens at Cambridge we are fortunate to have the opportunity to study a fine collection of this magnificent group of trees. This course is suitable for beginners, including more experienced botanists who have not yet tackled conifers (or tried and failed!) and all those who love trees.

No previous knowledge is assumed.

Tutor: Angie Cano
Date: Tuesday 01 December – Wednesday 02 December 2026
Time: 10 am - 4 pm
Cost: £155
Location: Classroom


Join our Deputy Curator, Dr Ángela Cano, on this two-day introduction to tropical botany. Travelling back in time, you will learn about the dynamic borders of the tropical region, with a focus on the fossil record. You will then study current patterns of geographic distribution of plant diversity on Earth, discovering that it is not homogeneous, but dramatically different between continents. You will fly over the tropical belt to understand which regions have the highest species richness, known as “biodiversity hotspots”, and face the strongest threats. Ángela will then discuss the main factors that threaten this biodiversity and the local and ex situ efforts that are in place to counteract their effects. The second part of the course will focus on plant systematics – understanding how plants have evolved and how taxonomists have classified them. You will focus on different tropical plant groups, starting with non-flowering plants, such as mosses, ferns and conifers and then briefly cover the most representative tropical angiosperm families.