Community Education

The Gardens at HCP offer a diverse range of Community Education workshops and classes. These cover gardening and horticulture related topics and garden arts such as basketry and natural building. Many classes are taught in the gardens themselves and give students the opportunity for hands on learning. Participants return again and again to learn and be part of the warm HCP community of gardeners and artists.

For those who would like to commit to a series, we currently have the Master Gardener series and the Year Round Harvest series with Linda Gilkeson. We will be adding more series in 2021 and 2022.

Don't forget HCP Members receive a discounted rate on many of our workshops.  For more information on becoming a member please click HERE.

To read about some of our most popular series and regular classes, please see below. Otherwise please check our calendar on this page to see upcoming classes. The best way to get regular updates on upcoming workshops is to sign up for our monthly enews. If you don't already receive the enews, you can easily sign up by clicking HERE.

Linda Gilkeson's Year Round Harvest Workshop

One of our most popular series s is Year Round Harvest for the Urban Gardener with Linda Gilkeson.  The mild winters of Coastal British Columbia make it possible to grow and harvest vegetables all year around. In 10 sessions, Linda Gilkeson will cover from seeds to harvest for large and small urban gardens.

Plant Identification and Culture Workshops with Diane Pierce

If you are new to gardening, an experience gardener wanting to expand your plant knowledge or have recently moved to the area then we suggest you sign up for Diane Pierce's Plant Identification and Culture Workshops. This is a perfect class to learn about plants suited to local conditions from a knowledgable instructor with a great sense of humour. Diane will teach participants 25 new plants per class. Classes are held one Saturday per month from 1pm to 4pm. Classes will be a combination of in class, outdoors, field trips and occasionally online.

Watercolour Classes with Richard Wong

Richard Wong is a professional wildlife artist in Victoria, BC. He teaches in-person watercolour classes at the Gardens and now will be offering online classes via zoom.All Richard's classes are relaxed, fun and fully supported. He offers safe classes for beginners who want to try watercolour for the first time or those wanting to learn more techniques. Richard offers classes online and in person at the HCP.

Floral Design Program with Linda Rambaud

We are currently taking an interest list for this program. If we have enough interest, this program will run in 2021. Participants will learn industry-level design techniques, how to work with a variety of materials and how to care for fresh flower arrangements. This course is suitable for those interested in joining the floral industry and those wanting to create arrangements for a special event. To view course details or to add yourself to the interest list, please click HERE.

If you would like to learn more about the MASTER GARDENER PROGRAM or to add yourself to the interest list, please click here.

For more information on upcoming workshops, please see the sidebar on the right of this page.