Workshops & Classes for Groups

The HCP offers workshops and classes for private groups, including businesses, organizations and clubs.

About the Gardens

The Gardens at Horticulture Centre of the Pacific (HCP) presents a year-round garden experience that all can enjoy. Located in Saanich, just twelve kilometers north of Downtown Victoria, you will find a 9 acre public garden lovingly cared for by volunteers, staff, and students.

The Gardens were started in 1979 and are proud to be a “gardeners garden”, connecting people with plants. Being non-profit we are able to exist and be successful through the kindness of others, not just through financial donations but in hands-on volunteer work throughout our garden.

Facilities

Workshops are held at The Gardens at HCP, 505 Quayle road in Saanich. Depending on which class you are registering for, you may be out in the Gardens or in our portable classroom.
The classroom is equipped with 6ft tables which are typically shared by two participants. The maximum capacity is 24. The classroom does not have a sink or washroom, but there is one just a few meters away.
Unfortunately the Gardens are not yet fully accessible to wheelchair users. If you have any wheelchair users in your group, please get in touch so we can provide more information.
If your class is outside, you may not be in a sheltered area, so please be prepared for the weather, which may include raingear, umbrellas, sunhats and suncreen, depending on the day.

Our parking lot is small, so we recommend carpooling or biking if possible. If the lot is full when you arrive, please use angle parking on Quayle Road. Charlotte and the Quail Restaurant is open daily from 10am – 3pm. They can be very busy, so we recommend contacting them directly if you have a large group arriving for lunch.

Available Classes

Pruning for Beginners

Description

Learn the basics of pruning with Adam Miller, a Red Seal Certified Horticulturist and pruning instructor at the Pacific Horticulture College. In this course you will learn not only how, but why (and if) pruning should be done. Through in-class lecture, group work, instructor demonstration and hands-on work you’ll gain confidence in your ability to tackle basic pruning tasks in your garden.

Meet the Instructor – Adam Miller

Adam has run his own gardening company since 2013 after a career in equipment sales and finance. He has been teaching at the Pacific Horticulture College for several years and completed his Horticulture Red Seal Certification in 2018. He’s driven by a desire to ‘save the planet one garden at a time’ by using ecological gardening practices and is a passionate horticulturist.

Class Details

Location: The Gardens at HCP, 505 Quale Road, Saanich
Level: Beginner / Experienced
Duration: 3 hours
Months Offered: F / M / A / M / J /J /A /S /O /N
Class Size: 6 – 24
Group Rate:
12 participants or less – $500
13 to 18 participants – $700
19 – 24 participants – $900
Activities Involve: Sitting / Standing / Walking / Bending / Kneeling / Being outdoors

Eco Printing with Lorelei Textile Design

Description

Participants will engage in hands on learning to create one of a kind eco printed cloth using locally gathered foliage and botanicals.

Meet the Instructor – Carly Stefanowich

Carly of Lorelei Textile Design breathes new life into old threads. Using second hand fibres and low water natural dye techniques she creates wearable, one of a kind works of art to adorn your body and your home. Always with sustainability in mind, she makes use of homegrown botanicals and local foliage to imprint time and place into cloth, informed by the ever changing seasons. She has been working with natural dyes for over 10 years.

Class Details

Location: The Gardens at HCP, 505 Quale Road, Saanich|
Level: Beginner / Experienced
Duration: 3 hours
Months Offered: J / F / M / A / M / J / J / A / S / O / N / D
Class Size: 6 – 12
Group Rate:
6 participants or less – $520
7 – 12 participants – $840
Activities Involve: Sitting / Bending / Kneeling / Being in the classroom / Being outdoors

Introduction to Pruning Fruit Trees

Description

In this class the instructor will cover the fundamental of summer versus winter pruning, different pruning styles and the main types of pruning cuts for fruit trees. He will introduce some of the misconceptions of pruning including lots of myth busting!

Meet the Instructor – Gordon Mackay

Gordon Mackay grew up in the city of Glasgow, often called the ‘dear green place’. Inspired by his father at an early age to pursue horticulture, he was fortunate enough to be able to follow in his footsteps and completed the 2 year Diploma program at Threave School of Gardening in southwest Scotland and later a 3 year Diploma program at Pershore College of Horticulture in England. Since emigrating to Canada in 1994, Gordon had developed and established his own arboriculture business specializing in fruit tree pruning and tree care.

Class Details

Location: The Gardens at HCP, 505 Quale Road, Saanich
Level: Beginner / Experienced
Duration: 3 hours
Months Offered: F / M / A / M / J /J /A /S /O /N
Class Size: 6 – 15
Group Rate:
8 participants or less – $400
9 to 15 participants – $600
Activities Involve: Sitting / Standing / Walking / Being in the classroom / Being outdoors

Finger Painting without the Paint

Description

This class is a FUN exploration of color and ones own unique mark making process to create colorful still life pieces inspired by fresh flowers and gardens. Participants will be using a multitude of mediums with their fingers including chalk oil pastel, china markers, Stabilo crayons, pencil crayons and wax polish on paper.

Meet the Instructor – Wendy Picken

Wendy Picken is well known for her whimsical, bold and colorful floral work. She has been an artist on the Saanich Peninsula for the past 35 years. She has illustrated and self published 2 books for children, her latest release is titled ‘Rainbees & Honeybows’.

Class Details

Location: The Gardens at HCP, 505 Quale Road, Saanich
Level: Beginner / Experienced
Duration: 3 hours
Months Offered: J / F / M / A / M / J /J /A /S /O /N
Class Size: 6 – 12
Group Rate:
6 participants or less – $520
7 to 12 participants – $840
Activities Involve:Sitting / Standing / Walking / Bending / Kneeling / Being in the classroom / Being outdoors

Gardening with Native Plants

Description

In this workshop, learn about how gardening with our local native plants they can give you a water-saving and low-maintenance garden that brings colour all season long, making them the ultimate ecological choice. Native plants are adapted to the area’s conditions making them ideal for organic gardening – no supplemental fertilisers or pesticides needed. Whether your garden conditions are wet, salty or xeric (dry dry dry) there are native plants that will thrive no matter what. Pollinators love them too!

Meet the Instructor – Emony Nicholls

Emony has worked as a biologist, an environmental consultant, entrepreneur and civil servant for the last 25 years. Her graduate research was on the relationship between pollinators and plants and how it drives their evolutions. As part of this work, she did taxonomic identification of the native pollinators and fell in love with their diversity, abilities and individual beauty. She is now on a mission to educate others about them in the hopes that they will fall in love – and support them too!

Class Details

Location: The Gardens at HCP, 505 Quale Road, Saanich
Level: Beginner / Experienced
Duration: 2 hours
Months Offered: J / F / M / A / M / J / J /A / S /O / N / D
Class Size: 6 – 24
Group Rate:
12 participants or less – $490
13 to 18 participants – $730
19 – 24 participants – $970
Activities Involve: Sitting / Being in the classroom

Watercolours with Richard Wong

Description

Various subjects are available for your group to select from, including landscapes, seascapes, florals, birds, or animals for your class. There is also an option of which painting surface you would like to work on (i.e. either on Japanese art paper or on canvas). Classes are taught using the step-by-step method while focusing on participant enjoyment. All art supplies will be provided. Workshops are for all levels, including beginners.

Meet the Instructor – Richard Wong

Richard Wong is a professional wildlife artist and watercolour instructor residing in Victoria, BC. His art blends the beauty, simplicity and structure of Chinese Brush with Contemporary Western. Richard’s watercolour classes are enjoyable, stress free and suitable for all levels, including beginners.

Class Details

Location: The Gardens at HCP, 505 Quale Road, Saanich
Level: Beginner / Experienced
Duration: 3 hours
Months Offered: F / M / A / M / J /J /A /S /O /N
Class Size: 8 -24
Group Rate:
$110/participant on Japanese art paper
$120/participant on canvas
Activities Involve: Sitting / Being in the classroom

Designing Gardens for Pollinators

Description

During this workshop discover what all the buzz is about our pollinators– learn about native pollinators, their importance to ecosystems and our food supply, and the issues they are facing. Find out how these bees and butterflies and birds like to live and what they like to eat with practical information on creating a garden in the Victoria region that will be a pollinator paradise. And if the flowers are blooming, we will learn how to identify some of the common pollinators in your garden as we take a stroll to see who’s buzzing around.

Meet the Instructor – Emony Nicholls

Emony has worked as a biologist, an environmental consultant, entrepreneur and civil servant for the last 25 years. Her graduate research was on the relationship between pollinators and plants and how it drives their evolutions. As part of this work, she did taxonomic identification of the native pollinators and fell in love with their diversity, abilities and individual beauty. She is now on a mission to educate others about them in the hopes that they will fall in love – and support them too!

Class Details

Location: The Gardens at HCP, 505 Quale Road, Saanich
Level: Beginner / Experienced
Duration: 2 hours
Months Offered: M / A / M / J / J /A / S /O
Class Size: 6 – 24
Group Rate:
12 participants or less – $490
13 to 18 participants – $730
19 – 24 participants – $970
Activities Involve: Sitting / Being in the classroom

Introduction to Backyard Beekeeping

Description

In this class we will cover all the basics and fundamentals is to get you started with honey bees. Hive equipment and tools, bee pests/ diseases and also plants for bees will be covered. Suitable for the beginner beekeepers or anyone curious about doing so in future

Meet the Instructor – Gordon Mackay

The instructor is Gordon Mackay who has been keeping bees since the 1990’s. He was originally inspired by the incredible organizational skills and work ethic of bees when he was a horticultural student at Threave School of Gardening in southwest Scotland. Keeping bees has led to a strong desire to learn more and he has twice attended the beekeeping courses led by Andrew Abrahams at the Black Bee Sanctuary on Colonsay Island, Scotland.
Gordon hopes to share some of his enthusiasm and experience working with the bees. Along with being a beekeeper, Gordon is also an arborist and nurseryman, with a particular addiction to dwarf conifers and alpine plants.

Class Details

Location: The Gardens at HCP, 505 Quale Road, Saanich
Level: Beginner
Duration: 2 hours
Months Offered: M / A / M / J / J /A / S /O
Class Size: 6 – 24
Group Rate:
8 participants or less – $400
9 to 15 participants – $600
Activities Involve: Sitting / Standing / Being in the classroom

Questions? We would love to hear from you!