Mindfulness in the Gardens, Adelaide event supports conservation and education

The Adelaide Botanic Garden turned quiet attention into a conservation act, with a 1.5-hour mindfulness workshop inviting participants to tune into sights, scents, sounds and textures while $25 tickets helped support conservation, education and horticulture.

Mindfulness in the Gardens was listed for Friday, 17 April 2026, from 2:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. at the Goodman Building Lecture Theatre in the Adelaide Botanic Garden, with a second session also listed for 22 May. The setup made the event more than a simple wellness outing: it was a public, place-based workshop inside one of Adelaide’s best-known green spaces, with the ticket price directly tied to the work that keeps the gardens operating.

The session sat within the Botanic Gardens’ Nature-based Wellbeing program, which frames mindfulness as a practical tool for reducing stress and improving health and well-being. The event page described it as an outdoor workshop, and attendees were advised to dress for the weather, reinforcing that the experience was built around direct contact with the garden rather than a classroom-style meditation session.

That approach fits the wider work of Emma Lewellyn, who has worked at the Botanic Gardens of South Australia since 2021. Described by the institution as a horticulturalist, garden educator and designer with a background in holistic health, Lewellyn designs and delivers Therapeutic Horticulture and Nature-based Wellbeing programs grounded in the permaculture values of earth care, people care and equity. The gardens say these workshops can also be customised for particular groups, giving the format a reach well beyond a single public session.

The event also reflected a broader institutional mission. Botanic Gardens & State Herbarium says its purpose is to build understanding and appreciation of the botanical world, and it frames its work around botanical sciences, collections and conservation. The Adelaide Botanic Garden itself spans 50 hectares in the city, and its Garden of Health contains more than 2,500 plants used to heal and promote wellbeing in western and non-western cultures.

That conservation link is not decorative. The State Herbarium of South Australia holds preserved plant, algal and fungal specimens that serve as a point-of-truth for where a plant occurred at a particular time, giving the gardens a scientific backbone to match their public programming. The institution also recognises South Australia’s Aboriginal people as the traditional owners of Country, with Country described as central to Aboriginal social, cultural and spiritual lives.

Earlier Botanic Gardens messaging on horticulture therapy captured the philosophy behind the workshop neatly, quoting then-Director Dr Lucy Sutherland: “there is a growing awareness of how connecting to plants and nature can be hugely beneficial when caring for bodies and minds.” In Adelaide, Mindfulness in the Gardens put that idea into practice by linking a sensory meditation session to the long-term care of the garden itself.