A fun, interactive class on how to use your body to garden without causing aches and pains on Saturday, May 18, from 10 to 11:30 a.m. Instructor Madeline Hooper, star of the public television series "GardenFit," will demonstrate the basic principles of form, balance and posture and teach participants the best body mechanics for gardening: lifting, bending, weeding, digging, and getting up and down from the ground. Participants will also be given key gardening warmups and stretches. You will leave this course knowing how to make your body your most important garden tool.

Madeline Hooper has honed her gardening skills at Rockland Farm, an extensive ten-acre property in upstate New York that she and her husband developed from scratch over the past 25 years. She continues her education by taking courses and attending lectures and has visited many of the finest gardens in the US and Europe, building relationships with leading horticulturalists and garden designers. Madeline was invited to become a trustee of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and of the Berkshire Botanical Garden where she has been Vice Chair for the past ten years.