Virtual Open House: Certificate in Ecological Horticulture

Would you like to learn how to create and maintain landscapes that are grounded in ecological principles and practice? Taught by regional horticultural experts, this classroom and field-based program is a series of 12 courses geared toward avid home gardeners and landscape professionals looking to develop a deeper understanding of sustainable landscape design and management.

Join us at our free Virtual Open House, where you’ll be able to meet some of our certificate program staff and instructors, ask questions, and get answers! A Zoom link will be emailed to all registrants.

The Morris Arboretum & Gardens’ Certificate in Ecological Horticulture is self-paced and can be completed in one year of intensive learning or up to several years at a slower pace. The first four courses in the series will be offered in fall 2025. The certificate is unique in our ecological systems-based approach to landscape design and maintenance. Our program approaches each garden as a complex living system, where plants, soil, water, animals, climate, human activity, and other elements interact with and influence each other. In hands-on and classroom instruction, our program teaches design and stewardship strategies that address these relationships holistically rather than focusing on individual components in isolation.

The program will focus on our region here in Southeast Pennsylvania. Drawing from our deep expertise in this region’s ecology, all instruction will speak to our local ecosystems. Here at the Morris we have a long history in the native plants of Pennsylvania — we have literally written THE book on this topic! Instructors in the Certificate Program will include Morris staff members as well as other local professionals that are regionally and nationally acclaimed in ecological horticulture.