Sustainable Landscaping Certificate Program

Are you ready to build knowledge, develop skills, and take your next steps towards ecologically sustainable landscaping and gardening? Perhaps you have a small strip of lawn you want to convert to a more natural space, or you hope to invite butterflies and birds to a community park.  

You’re in the right place! 

Mass Audubon’s Sustainable Landscaping Certificate Program (SLCP) is designed to help you learn and get the resources you need to create a sustainable and ecologically beneficial patch of land—whether it’s 10 inches or 10 acres.  

The first phase of SLCP is bi-weekly online class sessions throughout the winter. Once the weather warms in the spring, students take their learning outdoors and use the skills and knowledge they’ve built to create sustainable landscapes and gardens themselves, or help us with a few sustainable landscaping projects around the state. 

What You Will Gain 

• Instruction, assignments and resources about sustainable landscaping, gardening and residential scale ecological restoration.  
• An understanding of the local impact of climate change and how residential-scale sustainable gardens can help address these impacts to support wildlife, biodiversity, and stormwater.  
• A shared learning community. 
• Opportunities for hands-on learning at some of Mass Audubon’s sustainable landscapes.  
• Support in planning your own sustainable landscape project over several months, with scheduled check-ins with classmates and coaching from the instructors.  
• Upon completion, you will receive a certificate. Additional documentation can be provided for participants who need it for PDP credits, employee reimbursement, or other requirements.  

Who Should Attend  

• Anyone who cares, is interested, and is motivated to learn about sustainable landscaping and gardening, from the science of it to its climate impacts to simple best practices.  
• Anyone who wants to design and create a living, sustainable, natural area on a patch of outdoor space or lawn, a rooftop garden or even a container on a porch. (Examples include pollinator, bird and butterfly gardens.) 
• Community members and civic employees who want to make landscaping improvements to parks, community buildings, campuses, walking/biking paths, and other public spaces through volunteering, garden clubs, or community service projects.  
• Landscaping professionals who want to learn about sustainable practices, from those starting out to more experienced landscapers. 
• People who want to be part of a learning community of like-minded, conservation-focused individuals, and build a stronger understanding of nature, natural history, and conservation. 

Want more information? Email us.

2026 Schedule 

Online classes will initially meet for seven alternating weeks on Tuesdays, 7:00-8:30 pm. 

The final four class sessions are spread out to allow time for ongoing learning, group sharing, and coaching with project implementation.  

Throughout the spring, students will have the opportunity to visit sustainable landscapes around Massachusetts, as well as the chance to apply their learning, hands-on, at home or at a Mass Audubon sustainable landscape project.  

Program Fee 

$325 per person for Mass Audubon members; $390 for nonmembers . 
Become a member now (or when you register) to take advantage of the member rate. 

Discounted fees available. Please email us for an application if you are: 

• A student  
• Any garden club or landscaping business, municipality, organization, or environmental group sending three or more members   
• In need of a scholarship for another reason 

Register Today