Getting Started with Garden Programming

Distilled from 23 years of developing & facilitating lots of therapeutic garden programs. You’ll come away with new confidence, excitement, and a toolkit of ideas and practical do’s & don’ts.

Where to start? Offering therapeutic garden programming can be challenging, yet worth the effort! How to ease into it? How to keep it safe for your participants and stay within your time, energy and budgetary limitations?

What you'll learn:
  • the evidence-based outcomes of gardening (from recent systematic reviews)
  • how to decide between group and one-to-one gardening sessions 
  • non-toxic plant choices 
  • how to overcome challenges by starting small, engaging your community of care, and creating systems 

You’ll come away with new confidence, excitement, and a toolkit of ideas and practical do’s & don’ts.

What you'll get:

  • a 57-minute recorded video
  • a Google worksheet
  • a wishlist of low-risk indoor plants
  • references & additional resources

This workshop is useful for:

  • Recreation therapists & activity workers
  • Allied healthcare providers
  • Community leaders
  • School teachers


Your nature muse: Shelagh Smith, HTR, MAEEC

Shelagh inspires healthcare professionals and caregivers to engage with nearby nature for self-care, and to share this evidence-based practice with their peeps for health promotion and therapeutic intervention. 


She's a professionally registered Horticultural Therapist with the CHTA in Canada and the AHTA in the United States, and holds a Masters degree in Environmental Education and Communication.

For 23 years, Shelagh developed and led therapeutic garden programs for care home residents, while supervising and mentoring many students and volunteers. She taught people with mental health challenges how to grow their own food, collaborated on the design of restorative and enabling gardens, and gave 100+ live multi-media presentations and workshops to healthcare, community, and professional organizations. 


Vancouver, Canada is her local nature playground, and she loves to travel on the back roads of British Columbia with her husband and their tiny Trillium trailer.

  • Customer
  • Payment

Contact information

Billing address

Payment information

You will not be charged for this purchase, but if you choose to make an optional purchase later, this card info will be used to complete that transaction!

Completing payment with PayPal

Processing...
  • Total payment
  • 1xGetting Started with Garden Programming (CAD)$35
    -+

All prices in CAD