Spring Break Camps at VanDusen Botanical Garden are full-day outdoor camps that allow children to learn about the natural environment through engaging hands-on activities, games, crafts, and experiments!
Member* Priority Registration opens: Tuesday, January 18th at 12:00pm (noon)
*Must hold a ‘Family‘ or ‘Individual + One Child Membership‘. Memberships must be purchased before January 14th to receive priority registration access.
Autumn colours are absolutely stunning at the Garden, and there are plenty of blooms still showing.
Download the December bloom guide here.
Learn MoreThe winter Garden features muted colour palettes, stunning silhouettes and a scattering of colour with winter berries and blooms.
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In spring the Garden is bursting with cheerful rhododendrons, stunning magnolias, delicate cherry blossoms and bloom-full camellias – to mention a few…
Learn MoreSummer in the Garden features vibrant colours and fragrant smells for our visitors to enjoy.
Learn MoreAnother planting calendar is starting, bringing back the joy of getting your hands dirty! If you are a beginner gardener wanting to create your food garden from seeds, it’s better to start early, and this is the perfect class to receive instructions on how to do it.
Join Jennifer Lipka, an MSc Student at the Faculty of Land and Food Systems of UBC, who has plenty of practical experience and will discuss what seeds you need to start indoors and when, how to start seeds indoors and what you’ll need, considering many budgets. Additionally, the class will cover the soil to use, containers and grow lights to buy. The session will finish with a demonstration.
In this presentation, Spencer W. Stuart will discuss one of the first books published in English on gardening, Thomas Hill’s ‘A Most Briefe and Pleasaunte Treatise, Teaching How to Dresse, Sowe, and Set a Garden’ (1563).
A product of Elizabethan Period, Hill’s book offered a compendium of tools as well as techniques from beekeeping to making flower beds. Evidence of its popularity can be seen in the many reprints throughout the 16th Century under the title of ‘The Profitable Arte of Gardening’.
Whether you’re designing a small green entrance to your home or an expansive backyard oasis, this online class will equip you with the essential principles of landscape design. Join Janis Matson, horticulturist and owner of Shoreline Landscape Design, for this 4-part workshop series.
Learn foundational design concepts, such as soil, slope, sun exposure, and irrigation. Expand your learning with the principles and elements of design like focal points, scale, colour, balance, and more. Bring photos or drawings of your garden and work on your own property’s design with feedback and insight from the instructor. Leave inspired and ready to design your garden.
Botanist Latifa Pelletier-Ahmed joins the VBGA to teach you about deciduous tree identification. Participants will learn about native and commonly cultivated species found in VanDusen Botanical Garden and around the Lower Mainland. Learn key characteristics of the most common deciduous tree families and recognize them in urban and wild environments.
This illustration course taught by Katharine Dickinson will bring the fun of drawing to the world of birds.
Strengthen your observation skills for studying birds, while developing your illustration skills. In the first class of this 2-part series, capture the plain form and essential bird features with simple sketches. In the second class, explore adding touches of watercolour to your drawing. After this course, you’ll have the confidence to bring your sketchpad out to the park, or to VanDusen Garden, or Bloedel Conservatory (admission sold separately), and connect to birdwatching through art.
Interested in growing your own food but don’t have access to an in-ground garden? Welcome to the world of possibilities for edible container gardening!
This class is perfect for urban gardeners who want to get started with growing veggies and food crops on their balconies, patios, and container gardens, with tips on how to get started. Learn which vegetable varieties are best for patios or balconies, what the best soils and companion plants are, and which container pots to choose. After receiving Jennifer’s assistance and demonstration, you will feel confident to design the layout of a container garden to plant at home.
