“This is the time of year when people are getting cabin fever,” smiles Rosie Johnson as she bends over a deceptively spring-like floral arrangement on this chilly winter day.

“Know what? Sales for seed catalogs spike around now, too. “We’re itching to garden.”

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Johnson, a neighborhood resident as well as a horticulture project specialist for the Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Gardens, is one of the instructors who will be chasing away the cold-weather doldrums with classes such as “Grocery Bouquet to Floral Array” this month.

“When you pick up a bunch of flowers at the grocery store, it doesn’t mean you have to just plop them in a vase,” says Johnson, who is asking her students to do the former, but not the latter.

Armed with scissors and a trusty Minyard’s assortment of florals, Johnson’s proteges will learn to execute a more professional arrangement in a container (provided) other than a empty peanut butter jar.

Another instructor, Leslie Finical-Halleck, the Arboretum’s associate director of horticulture research, says: “People want to get involved in gardening whether or not they’re up to getting outside right now. Class, studying, is one way to do that. It’s good to do this pre-spring – it’s a jump start.”

Neighborhood resident Finical-Halleck will be teaching two new classes: “Perennials for the Metroplex,” a class based on research from the Arboretum’s trial garden, and “Beautiful Bulbs” (yes, there’s still time, although Finical-Halleck says they’ll probably move this one up to November next year).

One of the more off-the-beaten-path offerings comes from the Arboretum’s director of gardens, Dave Forehand: “Home Hydroponics.” Huh? Come on, some of you probably had some kind of school experiment where you sprouted something using only water. But what you may not have realized is that this principal has some practical applications, such as growing produce when there’s ice outside.

“Many people like to try vegetables – I recommend quick-growing small plants like lettuce or patio tomatoes,” says Forehand, who says he’ll get all different kinds of takers for his spiel.

“I’ll see a lot of experienced gardeners who are bored and want to try something different. There’ll probably be an assortment of science project kids. And then we’ll have people who have never done any gardening – who aren’t interested in digging in the dirt in the back yard.”

Finical-Halleck says the Arboretum once offered this “dead of winter” salvation only during January and February, but now they keep the faith going through April, when spring almost certainly has arrived. She feels a kinship with the throngs of pasty gardeners who will be crowding her classrooms for a first step toward the 2001 growing season.

“When I was a graduate student in Michigan, I used to go for walks through the university greenhouses,” Finical-Halleck says.

“I had to escape the gray skies.”