About Us

VIU's 12-month Horticultural Technician Certificate Program is unique in its diversity. Our location and facilities provide our students with a broad range of horticulture experiences including plant identification and propagation, greenhouse and nursery crop production, pest management, landscape design, construction and maintenance. During the summer intersession period, students spend two months on work experience practica. In addition to the one year Horticulture Technician program, we offer courses on various aspects of horticulture at our site through our Continuing Education department.

Situated at the 32-acre G.R. Paine Horticultural Training Centre, students are provided with a modern and self-contained teaching environment only minutes from the main VIU campus. Occupying about 5 acres of this rural site, the Centre is comprised of classrooms , lab and work areas, modern production greenhouses, an ornamental nursery and supporting landscapes. A wide variety of plant materials are produced by program students at the Centre, such as bedding plants, poinsettias, Easter lilies, ornamental landscaping materials, native plants and seedlings for reforestation of VIU's Forest Woodlot.

This year we have started the process of developing the remainder of the site. Our students have designed and built our first major demonstration garden, made possible by a generous donation, from Mr. LeVerne Hawken.

For the landscape maintenance and plant identification portions of the program, our students are also offered exceptional opportunities working at Milner Gardens & Woodland, a 70-acre estate in Qualicum Beach with an established, seaside garden.