A team of Durham College (DC) Horticulture Technician students took their classmate’s vision of a tranquil outdoor garden room from design to reality for the 2019 Landscape Ontario Congress (Congress), an annual trade show and conference for Canada’s horticultural and landscape professionals.

Featured within the Congress’s Canada Blooms Campus: Student Feature Gardens exhibit, the DC installation was designed by second-year student Amanda Steinberg and featured extensive woodwork, including a wooden accent wall, and a secret waterfall.

Steinberg’s design and the students’ participation in the Congress were all part of an assignment in their second-semester course, Sustainable Garden Concepts and Design. With only two days to construct their installation, the hands-on experience challenged the students to apply their skills in a real-work situation with finite project timelines.

Held from January 8 to 10 in Toronto, the Congress also provided DC’s students the opportunity to network with industry professionals and their peers from other colleges.