Published on March 13, 2025 by Ethan Rotberg, Senior Communications Specialist | Evergreen
Before the conferences and community events and before the skating rink and blueberry scones. Before Evergreen Brick Works became the hub it is today, there was the simple idea to create a children’s garden.
But back then, there was no blueprint, no funding and no clear vision of what it would become. There was just a small farmers market drawing people to the site on Saturdays. A local landscaping company donated two mounds of dirt — when kids arrived, they did what kids do best: they climbed, dug and played. The seed that would become our unique Children’s Garden was planted — eventually growing into something beyond our expectations.
From the very early days, Evergreen Brick Works has been a testing ground for groundbreaking ideas that are transforming public spaces across the country.
The Children’s Garden is one of its greatest success stories — shaping how we design outdoor spaces for learning, play and climate resilience. What we’ve learned from building and evolving the Children’s Garden continues to influence our work, from our school ground greening work program to leading Canada’s first Climate Ready School at Irma Coulson Public School in Milton, Ontario.
Here’s how the ideas first tested in the Children’s Garden have grown.
Even before the inception of the Children’s Garden at the Brick Works, Evergreen had a long history of working with school communities on our school ground greening work. That approach was used in both the early stages of the Children’s Garden and at Irma Coulson Public School’s transformation.
“What we learned from the Children’s Garden was that the earlier you involve the community in the imagining of the space, the better,” says Heidi Campbell, Senior Program Manager at Evergreen. “Their perspectives, priorities and preferences are really important in shaping the space.”
In the early stages of the Children’s Garden and the Climate Ready Schools pilot, Evergreen engaged participants through low-tech, hands-on activities.
At Irma Coulson Public School, a variety of activities were introduced to gather input from students about the space. Younger children engaged in drawing, building and outdoor play with loose parts, while older students had the opportunity to modify or adapt the activities based on how they wanted to interact with their peers. It echoed the early days of the Children’s Garden, where free play and creative interaction with materials helped shape the space.
The design elements at Irma Coulson Public School also build on Evergreen’s 30-year legacy of transforming school grounds across Canada into nature-rich play and learning environments. But some features were initially tested at the living lab we call Evergreen Brick Works.
“We started the Children’s Garden with no topography,” says Campbell. “We introduced a small hill — we called it the bump — amid a very flat courtyard. Through research, we’re finding that hills are very important for children’s physical activity. They want to get up high and look out across the site. We absolutely brought topography like that to Irma Coulson Public School.”
Large gathering areas were a priority in both designs. At the Children’s Garden, this took the form of seating around the fire pit, while at Irma Coulson, it’s a stage with large stone seating forming an outdoor classroom. Both spaces also emphasize interactive play; the Children’s Garden began with simple water play features like tanks and buckets, eventually trialling a hand pump, which was later incorporated at Irma Coulson.
Additionally, the concept of loose parts play, central to the Children’s Garden, was brought to Irma Coulson. There, a dedicated loose parts storage area holds a variety of kits, including planks and boards, which students regularly use for creative outdoor play.
Evergreen has always been committed to grounding our design and features in the local ecology — thinking about native plants and their important role in supporting biodiversity, maintaining healthy ecosystems and fostering a deeper connection between people and nature.
“One of the methods was experimenting with using willow in the Children’s Garden to help with erosion control,” says Campbell. “Some of those species of willow were transferred to Irma Coulson. Willow is quite resilient, and it’s also very soft. When children are running through the grounds, they’re not getting poked or scratched by rigid branches.”
The Brick Works also has stretches of green corridors, known as greenways, running next to the Children’s Garden. These spaces are designed to capture, treat and slow the flow of stormwater runoff as it moves downstream.
“It was important to us to show where the water flows as part of our education programs in the Children’s Garden,” explains Campbell. “At Irma Coulson, the vegetative swales are smaller but still very visible.”
It’s difficult to do anything alone. The work to develop the Children’s Garden — and to redevelop the Brick Works more broadly — included working together with the right partners and supporters.
“To create the Children’s Garden, there was always the need to build relationships — even to support with materials like mulch and sand and soil,” says Campbell. “We were always looking for ways to bring people into the circle. Creating a constellation of support. I think that’s what keeps the project vibrant.”
Transforming Canada’s first Climate Ready School grounds also meant building trusted relationships with the Credit Valley Conservation Authority, the Town of Milton and, of course, the Halton District School Board.
“I think the Evergreen approach, which we learned at the Brick Works, was how many people can we bring on to a project that can help create momentum,” adds Campbell.
The Children’s Garden is as much a living lab as it is a groundbreaking play space for children — including how it’s shaped our approach to teaching and learning.
Our Professional Development Workshops give educators and caregivers firsthand experience with the benefits of outdoor play and learning, showing how these principles can be applied across different teaching and caregiving models.
One key area we explore is risky play — play that is ‘as safe as necessary’ rather than ‘as safe as possible’ — to help kids engage their mind, develop motor skills and build a sense of confidence. At the Brick Works, we weave risky play into our professional development sessions.
“We hosted teachers from Irma Coulson Public School at the Children’s Garden to see these methods in action,” says Campbell. “The staff were eager to learn from our approach. Having programming in place before the design process is essential to us, ensuring that spaces are shaped by real, hands-on learning experiences.”
The Children’s Garden even used to host an annual forum that brought people together to share lessons learned and best practices around the design and programming of children’s play spaces. All these decades of experience have helped us empower teachers to get the most out of the outdoor classroom at the Climate Ready Schools pilot.
Learn more
The Children’s Garden is currently undergoing a magical transformation so it can continue to be a hub for innovation. From October 2024 to Spring 2025, the space will be closed while we transform the amphitheater and fireside experience. In the meantime, learn more about the Climate Ready Schools program and the impact it’s having on students, staff, the community and the environment.
