Community Outreach and Education
Learning, teaching, and continuing the conversation
Community Education · Professional Development · Cultural Exchange
A garden is never a finished subject. It asks us to keep looking, learning and paying attention—to plants and seasons, to changing climate, to cultural traditions, and to the ways people experience landscape. For Desirae D. Wood, teaching and community engagement are an extension of this lifelong practice.
At Denver Botanic Gardens, Desirae developed and teaches the Niwa Mori—Guardian of the Garden education program for the Rocky Mountain region. The program brings together garden observation, tea and cultural experience, design fundamentals and a three-day professional design intensive, helping landscape professionals and gardeners consider Japanese garden principles through the particular ecology and climate of the Rocky Mountains. The program offers continuing education for landscape architects and designers.
Her teaching and presentations also explore the relationship between ornamental gardens and ecological restoration. At the 2023 ASLA Conference on Landscape Architecture, she presented Bringing Nature Home: Designing Ornamental Gardens to Enhance and Restore Biodiversity, addressing how native plants can be thoughtfully integrated into residential gardens to support birds, butterflies, moths and bees while responding to climate, urban conditions and long-term maintenance.
Other teaching and outreach has grown from her work at Portland Japanese Garden, including lectures, workshops and professional programs addressing Japanese garden design, stone, pruning, planting, cultural arts and designing with nature. She has contributed to the North American Japanese Garden Association, Greenroof Info Thinktank, Landscape Journal and the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture, as well as conferences and symposia focused on urban ecology and conservation. Her work has also included cultural exchange through the KAKEHASHI Project and volunteer service with the Japanese American Society of Colorado.
Beyond formal teaching, Desirae continues to study the arts that inform her understanding of garden: Japanese tea ceremony, Sogetsu Ikebana, plein air watercolor, horticulture, stonework and the observation of nature. These practices reinforce a belief that knowledge of landscape is not acquired once, but developed through attention and repetition.
This same spirit informs Dobro Design. Teaching is not separate from practice; it is another way of looking closely at what we know, questioning what we assume, and sharing what has been learned. The conversation moves in both directions—experience informs teaching, and teaching continually sharpens the practice of making gardens.
Dobro Design
Landscape Architecture · Garden Design · Education · Research · Cultural Exchange
Selected Organizations & Collaborations
Denver Botanic Gardens · North American Japanese Garden Association · American Society of Landscape Architects · Landscape Journal/Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture · Greenroof Info Thinktank · Regenerative Education Collective of Denver · Japanese American Society of Colorado · Jane Silverstein Foundation · KAKEHASHI Cultural Exchange Project · Cities Alive · Urban Ecology & Conservation Symposium · Sogetsu Ikebana · Urasenke Chado