We offer five helpful basic classes for getting started. If you have a specific request for a custom class topic, we’d love to talk more! Let us know on our contact form.

Each of our garden parties are organized by a host and held at their house – we provide tools and supplies and encourage hosts to provide snacks, drinks, etc. The parties are designed for small groups of about 4-12 people and they start at $400 for up to six people (each additonal person is $20/person).

• Gardening Basics 
• Gardens for Stress Relief
• Gardens for Kids
• Sense of Place Gardening
• Edible Gardens

Gardening Basics

Gardening can be intimidating! This class steps through the basics of how to start a garden, including figuring out what’s best for your own space, coming up with a coherent design, and sourcing plants and supplies. We’ll also cover the basics of planting, garden maintenance, and planning for the future of your garden. Class topics include:

• Analyzing possibilities of your garden (sun, shade, microclimates)
• Basic design hints (create patterns using existing materials and plants)
• Where to get supplies
• Basics of planting
• Creating a maintainable garden (what to do about volunteers!)
• Gardening in containers (briefly)
• Creating a game plan in manageable chunks
• How to get the appropriate help when you need it

Gardens for Stress Relief

Gardening and spending time in nature have been shown to reduce stress and anxiety. When work, scheduling, news, or daily stresses are overwhelming, your garden can be a place to calm your mind. In this class you’ll learn about calming garden elements and design ideas for all five senses. We’ll discuss layout ideas for a new garden design, as well as plants and elements to incorporate into an existing garden to promote stress relief. In this class we will cover:

• Scents- types of herbs and placement at varying garden levels
• Wildlife- encouraging the presence of birds, butterflies, etc to see and hear
• Water- moving water elements for calming sounds and visuals
• Observation and meditation
• Teas 
• Perennial edibles and herbals – low maintenance but useful plants that can be eaten or used medicinally

Gardens for Kids

The garden can be an outdoor classroom and playroom for kids of all ages. A place to dig for young children, an enclosed small tree canopy for hiding, a birdbath for observation… these kinds of garden elements make the garden a fun, safe place to play and a place with unlimited learning opportunities. We’ll discuss ideas for making the garden usable, enticing, and safe for children. We will cover:

• Nature awareness- seasonal changes, wildlife
• Promoting unstructured play and imagination
• Benefits of exposure to soil microbes
• Science learning- exploration and observation
• Hand eye coordination 
• Skills (gardening, cooking, carpentry)
• How to avoid potential dangers

Sense of Place Gardening

In this day in age with so much change and stimulation it is easy to forget to stop and look around, to observe the landscape and get lost in the imagination of what used to be and how our local scenery has changed. The focus of this class is to understanding what the Bay Area was like before all the development and modernization. We will touch on topics such as:

• Why gardening with an understanding of the natural history is beneficial
• Bay Area native plants and their communities
• How your small garden can help the local environment
• Learn how to choose plants for a historical sense of place
• Where to source native plants
• Native alternatives to generally used landscape plants

Edible Gardens

Learn to grow food in your small space! Growing your own food is a great way to be outside and be active in your garden. From herbs on the windowsill, to veggies in raised beds, and even how to care for easy-to-maintain fruit trees- we’ll cover the basics. This class includes:

• Basics of veggie garden planning and planting
• Perennial edibles that come back year after year; such as fruit, artichokes and asparagus
• Easy to grow herbs for culinary and stress-reduction