The location: Curious Garden, run by Jason Cohen, a former neighbor when we both lived in Exposition Park in Dallas in the early 1990s.
The project: A carnivorous plant workshop, dedicated both to sharing information on carnivorous plants and to walking everyone through the construction and planting of their personal spoonleaf sundew (Drosera spatulata) enclosure.
The turnout: This was the workshop that kept growing, from one workshop of about 15 participants to two workshops of 20 each, and we very easily could have filled a third if we’d had the resources.
The response: Sometimes the best way to learn is to get hands-on experience instead of just taking notes at a lecture, so the whole enclosure process was set up to explain not just the how but the why of every layer and addition. Several attendees admitted that they had been too worried about getting into carnivorous plants before the workshop, so I now look forward to seeing their own contributions to carnivorous plant horticulture. (It may be time to talk to friends about setting up meetups for a local branch of the International Carnivorous Plant Society, because the number of Dallas and Fort Worth enthusiasts is hitting critical mass.)
The aftermath: After the second workshop, we still had more people stopping by to ask about the next one, so Jason and I are working out the details right now. Right now, we’re shooting for either August 31 or sometime in October. Look for details in the very near future.