Homeowners and professional landscapers in the community have the opportunity to get some education to help them with landscaping this spring.

The Beaufort County Cooperative Extension invites the community to participate in two upcoming workshops, one being focused on pruning and another focused on warm season turf management. The classes will be instructed by specialists from North Carolina State University.

On March 7, the Extension will host its “Fruit Tree and Muscadine Class and Pruning Workshop,” which includes a pruning demonstration and an amateur winemaking discussion, according to Gene Fox, consumer horticulture specialist at the Extension.

The workshop will encompass instruction on the varieties of fruit trees that can flourish in eastern North Carolina, as well as diseases, insects, pollination and other aspects of things that can affect those trees, Fox said. The workshop will feature a trip to a local farm where a pruning demonstration will take place involving apple and peach trees, as well as a talk about pecan trees.

“Then, we’ll prune muscadine, and we’ll have an amateur wine talk,” Fox said. “We’ll have different tools, a little bit of history and the means of how you’d make your own wine at home. There are so many people in eastern North Carolina that use muscadine grapes to make wine. To get people interested, we are having an amateur wine talk. It’s just kind of a fun part of the afternoon.” The Extension will host a Warm Season Turf Management class March 9 that will benefit homeowners and professional landscapers, alike, according to Fox.

“The big thing about the class is there will be three continuing education credits for those who hold a commercial pesticide license,” Fox said.

The class will cover subclasses of pesticides such as: L, ornamental and turf; D, dealers of pesticides; N, demonstration research; and X, private applicators, Fox said. It will also include a discussion about management and care of warm season turf, including maintenance regarding fertilizer and Lyme requirements and their associated time schedules in combatting weeds commonly found in eastern North Carolina turf.

“First and foremost, we’re here to educate,” Fox said. “That’s what these classes are all about. We use fact-based research to educate the public.”

To register for the workshops, call the Beaufort County Cooperative Extension at 252-956-0111.