The Julien Project
5420 Highway 6 North N1H 6J2 Guelph, ON, Canada

The Julien Project may be visiting your school’s backyard soon! With support from TD Canada Trust Friends of The Environment grant, The Julien Project staff are launching our Green Your School program series in spring 2021. We will be doing site visits this week to look and see how we can improve local outdoor classroom spaces. Plant a new pollinator garden? Remove invasive plants? Nurture your interest in perennial herbs? Stay tuned for a post in spring 2021 about our Green Your Schools program series!

Would you like to join The Julien Project volunteers on our weekly Nature Trail Walk every Tuesday morning 10-12 through Ignatius land? Its a great way to build community, and share information about the field of horticultural therapy, and make new friends in a safe way this winter. Reach out to [email protected] for more details!

Today was fall harvest day at the farm and we were lucky enough to have several volunteers join us in the garden for some harvesting fun. Most of the harvest will be donated to Lakeside HOPE House for distribution throughout the City of Guelph. Photos by Ivan Dario Samur.

With the help of some amazing volunteers, we managed to build ourselves a Yome! Now we have a sheltered space to do garden therapy programming during inclement weather. #mentalhealth #programming #community Photos by Elines Dominguez.

We have never had someone officially manage our social media accounts, until now. So we are very excited to welcome Elines Dominguez as our new volunteer Community Manager. Elines will be creating, moderating and facilitating all conversations on our Instagram and Facebook accounts, as well as interacting with our amazing community members.

We have been awarded a $19,600 grant from the Ontario Trillium Foundation to be used to develop an education program for individuals on the career path to becoming accredited horticultural therapists. The development of this program which involves collaboration with the Canadian Horticultural Therapy Association (CHTA), the Ignatius Jesuit Centre, The City of Guelph, and ADLER Graduate Professional School commenced in August and is expected to be completed by February 2021. For more information, as well as a quote from our local MPP Mike Schreiner, see the attached press release. #charity #gardening #therapy #mentalhealth #nonprofit #education #community

Check out these amazing flower arrangements we had at our Volunteer Luncheon last week!

We are excited to announce that we have been awarded a $7,100 funding grant from TD Friends of the Environment Foundation to support our 2021 'Green Your Schools’ initiative. Five Wellington Catholic Disrict School Board schools in Guelph and Wellington County will engage in this initiative. Students and staff, under the leadership of the Julien Project, will develop school yard pollinator gardens using native plant species. Through a series of workshops, students will learn ...and create a foundation of healthy soil; examine and explore plant and soil material; and plant their gardens. Students will also learn how to identify native and invasive plants, learn about their growth habits, and learn the critical role of pollination. This new initiative will enhance five school yards within The City of Guelph and County of Wellington by creating garden spaces that will become a future educational resource for staff and students. #education #environment #community #gardening

Today, we delivered our first online Zoom workshop! We hosted 5 participants from Immigrant Services-Guelph Wellington in a workshop that taught them plant up-potting and propagation techniques (with African violets and ivy) as well as how to press flowers gathered from our courtyard for an upcoming project. It was a great experience for all! #gardening #therapy #horticulture

Our Fall 2020 newsletter is now available on our website (https://www.thejulienproject.org/newsletter). The content of the newsletter includes: Our response to COVID-19, Updates from the North Field Farm Project, NEW online workshops, and... Events at the Julien Project. #nonprofit #newsletter #gardening #therapy #mentalhealth

We had a busy day at the North field garden for one of our last harvests of the season! It was all about the root vegetables, there were so many beets, carrots , pumpkins and squash to be shared around the community. Check out the third picture of our Horticultural intern Guinevere with that giant beet! Wow what a wonderful season it has been with so much beautiful organic produce. even though the growing season is ending, our fall programs are just beginning. If you would like to learn more or join the community, you can dm with questions, visit our Instagram page, or check out our website. We are always welcoming new members to our community

It is another hot day in The City of Guelph, hopefully everyone has found a way to keep cool!