Sustainable Landscaping Certificate Program
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 are bi-weekly online class sessions that run from February through July. 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.
Online classes will initially meet for 11 alternating weeks on Thursdays, 7:00-8:30 pm.
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, on a project of their own or on a Mass Audubon sustainable landscape project.
Want more information? Email us.
2027 Course Schedule
| Session Date | Topic |
|---|---|
| February 11 | Course Introduction: Types of Sustainable Landscapes and Specialized Gardens |
| February 25 | Shifting the Paradigm: From Lawns to Healthy Landscapes |
| March 11 | Native Plants: Biodiversity and Evolutionary Ecology |
| March 25 | Sustainable Lawns and Rain Gardens |
| April 8 | Designing Your Landscape Space |
| April 22 | Assessing Your Site Conditions and Preparing to Plan: Area, Moisture, Slope, Shade/Sun and Soil |
| April 22- June 2 | You will be invited to help with sustainable landscaping and gardening projects during Mass Audubon’s Statewide Volunteer Day. You will also have multiple opportunities to visit various Mass Audubon sustainable landscapes and gardens and talk to the designers or those who maintain them. |
| May 6 | Practical Aspects of Selecting and Finding Plants, and Planting |
| May 20 | Case Studies– guest gardeners and landscapers on what they’ve tried, done, and learned |
| June 3 | Practical Aspects of Planting and Maintaining Your Landscape Space |
| June 17 | Present/Share Your Projects, Questions, Challenges |
| July 1 | Present/Share Your Projects, Questions, Challenges |
| August | Optional meet ups, continued volunteering on Mass Audubon projects |
| September | Optional meet ups, continued volunteering on Mass Audubon projects |
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