265 resident garden experts trained since program launch — advanced curriculum and volunteer corps added this year to raise expertise
Songpa-gu in Seoul held the "2026 First-Half Songpa Village Gardener Graduation Ceremony" on Wednesday, certifying 55 new village gardeners, the district said.
Since the program launched last year, a total of 265 village gardeners have been trained. They now serve as core personnel in Songpa's garden-city initiative, contributing to the creation and upkeep of 101 living gardens across the district.
The ceremony honored participants who completed the village gardener training program, which ran from February through May. It featured certificate presentations, a screening of footage from training activities, and a commemorative photo zone. The course completion rate reached 90 percent.
The Songpa Village Gardener Training Program is designed to help residents develop the skills needed to become local gardening leaders capable of both creating and maintaining community gardens.
The curriculum ran once a week over 12 sessions, combining theory, hands-on practice, and field experience. The Songpa Garden Support Center provided classroom instruction covering tree species, plant structure and function. Participants also completed landscape maintenance practicals — including leaf clearing and pruning — at public gardens within the district, such as Jamsilsaenae Garden.
Field trips to an arboretum and the Seoul International Garden Show gave trainees a broader look at diverse garden design approaches.
This year, the district introduced an advanced curriculum in response to trainee feedback, extending the program beyond garden maintenance to include hands-on garden design. The change strengthens the training framework with the goal of producing resident experts who can both design and manage gardens, not merely maintain them.
The district also established a new volunteer corps, "Songpa Village Garden Activists," to give graduates direct involvement in real garden management. Members participate in managing public and companion gardens, mentoring flower seedling planting, and overseeing Songpa-gu's garden at the Seoul International Garden Show. Since the corps launched in March, it has carried out 20 activities, with more than 30 participants per session.
Songpa-gu currently operates around 70 living gardens, including the Pungnap-dong World Garden, and plans to expand that number to 101 this year. The district will continue village gardener training and a range of resident-participation garden programs in the second half of the year to further strengthen a community-led garden management system.
"We have moved beyond simply training village gardeners — residents are now taking the lead in driving garden activities themselves," district mayor Seo Gang-seok said. "We will build a nature-friendly garden city where green spaces and gardens are woven into the daily lives of our residents, further elevating the prestige of Songpa as a world-class district."
seouldream01@heraldcorp.com
