This free class, taught by Mary Phillips Riddle, will teach you how to incorporate gardening into the lives of your children. If you work in education, it will also give you an opportunity to learn how to incorporate it into the lives of your students.

A native Memphian, Mary is a professional horticulturalist at Hutchison School, where she has made a career out of teaching horticulture and agriculture to children of all ages.

After college in North Carolina, Mary returned to Memphis and was hired as the first manager for Memphis’ first non-profit urban farm, a position she held for a year before starting her own company consulting on and constructing landscaped edible gardens and raised beds for private residences and businesses. She has also taught farming in Memphis, having helped establish Green Leaf Learning Farm at KnowledgeQuest in South Memphis, where she organized a summer program and curriculum around farming and healthy food. During this period she also managed and taught classes at The Hutchison School’s on-site learning farm.

In 2012, Mary partnered with the investor and re-developer of the Clarion Hotel in the creating of Roots Memphis, on a vacant portion of the Clarion site. She then began developing a model for teaching others how to start and manage their own small farm businesses. That model eventually evolved into Roots Memphis Farm Academy, which she co-managed with her husband, Wes Riddle, an attorney and farmer, before returning to Hutchison full time.

Mary is passionate about incorporating agricultural and horticultural education into the lives of children and adults.

Light refreshments will be provided. Room seats 45 comfortably. Seating is rarely a problem but show up 15-20 minutes early for best seats.

Attendees who complete a short one page questionnaire and include their email address to sign up for Urban Earth’s monthly  newsletter receive a discount for the day of 15% off of plants and 10% off of other items, excluding items already on sale.