Have you learned to read your garden? This week we sit down with Lauren MacLean, a teacher, author, and podcaster from Richmond, British Columbia. She’s a big advocate for how outdoor classrooms help kids learn better, but a few years ago she had a learning experience of her own when her school built a new garden classroom. In this interview she shares with us her background as an outdoor educator and explains the magic of “sit spots” for creating a relationship with our environment—something we should all do in our own gardens. Lauren explains how even though she was new to gardening when her school dug into its new project, she was helped by the nature literacy she and her students already possessed. “Reading” the plants and the species who live in relationship to them is key.

Throughout today’s conversation we celebrate the value of garden failures and what they can teach us and the children who follow our example. We extend grace to ourselves and all gardeners (and houseplant parents!) who struggle to help their plants thrive. Lauren also offers advice for teachers to keep their garden classrooms afloat when the first bloom of ambition fades, and celebrates the community connections they can forge. Finally, we wrap up by trouble-shooting problems like summer watering, wildlife interactions, and weed identification. 

If you want to learn more from Lauren about outdoor learning, check out…

Lauren’s Courses: 

Nature’s Path: a Year of Monthly Sparks—monthly outdoor-learning professional development for educators and homeschooling families

Thrive Outside: Grow Your Teaching Space—a five-week program for teachers and homeschooling parents to grow their teaching into the outdoors

Lauren’s Books: 

Me and My Sit Spot—a picture book about choosing and using a sit spot

Finding Common Ground—a story set in an outdoor classroom

Sitting with Nature: An Educator’s Guide to Sit Spots—the book that brought Lauren and Erin together as author and editor, a resource that introduces why and how to use sit spots in the classroom (with lesson plans included!) 

Lauren’s Online: 

Teach Outdoors is Lauren’s podcast about outdoor learning.

teachoutdoors.ca is her website.

Lauren’s Social Media

Instagram: @teachoutdoors.ca

Facebook: Lauren MacLean-Douglas

Bluesky: @teachoutdoors.bsky.social

Timestamps

00:34 Intro

01:12 Lauren’s Outdoor-Learning Origin Story

02:40 Sit Spots: Building a Relationship with Nature

08:34 Lauren’s Garden-Classroom Learning Curve

10:10 Developing Plant Literacy

11:30 The Value of Failure in the Garden and the Classroom

16:55 Taking the Whole Curriculum Into the Garden

20:56 How Not to Abandon Your Garden Classroom

24:05 Classroom Gardens and Community

24:30 Summer Watering

27:47 Mulch and Acidity (worry less about it)

29:40 What Does Your (School) Garden Grow?

30:30 Fruit Trees in Schools?

30:50 An Ode to the Serviceberry

34:25 Lauren’s Home Gardening Mishap

35:00 Plant Propagation

38:54 The Importance of Weeding Guides

41:27 Lauren’s Courses, Books, and Podcast

43:33 Outro

Books and Experts Referenced in this Episode

Monty Don’s Down to Earth, in which he talks about building a place to sit in every garden

Don, M. (2020). Down to earth: Gardening Wisdom. National Geographic Books.

Megan Zeni, Outdoor Educator

Zeni, M. (2025). Megan Zeni - Room to Play Consulting. MeganZeni.com. https://meganzeni.com/ 

Robin Wall Kimmerer’s The Serviceberry

Kimmerer, R. W. (2024). The ServiceBerry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World. Simon and Schuster.

Erin’s picture book Outside, You Notice

Alladin, E. (2021). Outside, you notice. Pajama Press.