Courses

Celebrate the vibrant colours of spring in this 5 -session watercolour painting series! Under the guidance of instructor Susan Pearson, you’ll explore how to mix and create the subtle hues of the season through demonstrations and hands-on exercises. From soft moss greens to vibrant blooms, discover how even the smallest adjustment in your palette can transform your colours and bring your paintings to life. Whether you’re a beginner or an experienced artist, this course offers the perfect opportunity to refine your watercolour skills.  

Enhance your drawing skills to create more realistic depictions of plants in this 3-session series, instructed by artist and educator Katharine Dickinson. Her demonstrations will guide you through exercises focused on capturing a plant’s identifying features through line, shape, structure, and form. 

Explore watercolour techniques for botanicals, including mixing and matching a plant’s natural colours and applying washes and dry brush details.    

Join VanDusen Garden Superintendent Andrew Fleming on an insightful tour of the Garden to explore the beauty and blooms of early season plants like Korean spice viburnum, Magnolias and trilliums.  Learn about which plants are some of the first to wake up in the spring and get a look behind the scenes at what the gardening team focuses on to support this seasonal transition.  

This hands‑on April workshop will focus on what to sow and plant as the garden comes alive, with a focus on building a vibrant spring salad garden. Learn how to choose tender lettuces, peppery mustards, edible flowers, and quick microgreens that thrive in cool weather and offer endless combinations for fresh, homegrown salads & stir-fries.

Led by Sangeeta Thomas, Learning Garden Coordinator, the workshop will include a hands‑on gardening portion, and offer tried & true techniques you can use at home. 

Bats have endured a long history of fear and misunderstanding, but how did these stories begin? And how have they impacted bat species conservation practices over time? In this lecture, we will explore and deconstruct bat myths from North America and around the world, providing much-needed insights into how bats truly live.

To learn more about the speakers, see here.

This Speaker Series will be offered in-person (in the Guide Classroom in the Visitor Centre) and online (over Zoom). 

Join long-time VanDusen birding guide Jeremy Gordon for a beginner-friendly class on the basics of birding! This class is specifically designed to provide aspiring bird watchers with a solid foundation and the confidence to head out and get birding this season.

Join wildlife photographer Liron Gertsman for an in-depth bird photography workshop, going over tips, tricks and techniques for bird photography that can be applied regardless of your camera of choice, smartphones included. The program will include a photo walk through the gardens and an overview of post-processing techniques to help make your bird photos shine.

This course will equip you with essential knowledge on growing Chinese medicinal plants and guide you through proper methods for cultivating, harvesting, processing, and using these herbs.

This five-session series includes four online sessions, and the final session is a 2-hour, in-person guided plant walk at VanDusen Botanical Garden, led by Dr. Lily Chunling Liu, where you’ll receive Chinese medicinal plant seeds to take home and grow in your own garden.

Join Andrew Fleming, VanDusen Superintendent and expert gardener for a unique tour of VanDusen focused on the smells and aromas of the spring garden, both the pleasant and, sometimes, malodorous!

In this hands‑on May workshop, we’ll explore what to plant for a season of colourful, easy‑to‑grow cut flowers. Learn how to choose varieties that bloom reliably in summer, how to space and plant them for strong stems, and how to encourage continuous flowering. 

Led by Sangeeta Thomas, Learning Garden Coordinator, the workshop will include a hands‑on gardening portion, and offer tried & true techniques you can use at home.

Enhance your drawing skills and create realistic floral illustrations in this six-session (mixed online & in-person) series with artist and educator Katharine Dickinson. Through guided demonstrations, you’ll practice techniques to capture a plant or flower’s defining features—line, shape, structure and colour—while refining your observation skills.

Join long-time VanDusen birding guide Jeremy Gordon for a beginner-friendly class on the basics of birding! This class is specifically designed to provide aspiring bird watchers with a solid foundation & the confidence to head out and get birding this season.