On The Outside
On The Outside
We will be featured in a book!! PRE-sale starts Aug 12, 2026!
In Ecologies of Justice, you can read more about the New Garden Society's work, alongside similar projects across the United States and Canada. Get your copy now, and buy one for an incarcerated reader or organization that works in prisons!
Coming out of Rutger’s University Press, and brought together by Ecologies of Justice, “This book brings together, for the first time, contributions on issues related to prison, jail, and reentry programs, community-based interventions, environmental justice, and sustainability. Through rigorous analysis, detailed case studies, poetry, and personal reflections, the book offers ways of thinking and acting at the intersection of environmental issues and the carceral system.”
Read more about it here, and sign up to be reminded when presale opens!
Ecologies of Justice Book Donation Fund
The New Garden Society is pleased to sponsor the Ecologies of Justice Book Donation Fund. This fund will collect money to purchase copies of the Ecologies of Justice book to be donated to organizations that work in prisons or with communities impacted by incarceration. $27 buys and ships one book, but donations can be made in any amount. Donate a book to an incarcerated reader!
Our Green Industry Career Guide is now live —
We want this career guide to get into as many hands as possible! We also want it to grow! Please reach out to info@thenewgardensociety.org if you or an organization you represent would like copies to distribute, or if you are or represent a business that would like to be added to our list.
Renée Portanova and Jenny Pore planting ornamentals and perennials in the front yard of New Beginnings Reentry Services’ new property
New beginnings reentry
In 2021, our volunteers, board members, and friends designed and planted a garden at New Beginnings Reentry Services, a home for women re-entering society post incarceration. We were thrilled to be able to support endeavors of using horticulture, as therapy and vocation, as a means of lifting people up upon their release, so it was especially joyous to take part in this on the outside of the prison walls we spend most of our time working behind. Learn more about their work and how you can support them here.
The 2nd Northeast Prison Garden Retreat in Providence, RI.
The Northeast Prison Garden Collaborative
In 2021, The New Garden Society co-sponsored the “Conference on Social and Ecological Infrastructure for Recidivism Reduction.” For more information, visit the conference webpage: prisongardenjustice.org
Early on, The New Garden Society recognized that therapeutic horticulture in corrections is an emerging, and often challenging, field. The work happens beyond the view of the general public and is subject to restrictive institutional policies. Incarcerated program participants also face unique obstacles as they do time in an environment that was not designed for healing and does a poor job of preparing people for release. Emerging from conversations with other educators across Massachusetts and at the 2014 American Horticultural Therapy Association conference, The New Garden Society co-founded the Northeast Prison Garden Collaborative.
The 3rd Northeast Prison Garden Retreat in Lakeville, CT.
Since then, The New Garden Society has co-organized three convenings of prison garden educators to strategize and build community with others doing the work. We started in living rooms and grew from there. During the most recent event in January 2018, 25 educators gathered from 17 different organizations across the Northeast for the third Prison Garden Educators Retreat.
Beyond The New Garden Society, key leadership, support, and organizing for the collaborative has been provided by Abrah Dresdale of Franklin County Sheriff’s Department, Kate Lacouture of Garden Time, and Ferriss Donham of The Emerald Necklace Conservancy.
From our ongoing outreach, we have identified more than 45 active prison gardens across the Northeastern United States.
Join the conversation
If you work at the intersection of plants and prisons in the Northeast and want to join the regional conversation, email info@thenewgardensociety.org with LISTSERV in the subject line.
SLIDING SCALE WORKSHOPS & TALKS
Over the years we’ve given dozens of talks and workshops, sharing our experiences gardening alongside incarcerated students. Invite us to your community group, garden club or student organization to shine a light on this vital work happening in Greater Boston prison landscapes. We discuss prison gardens and greenhouses as tools for healing, expanded healthy food access and skill-building for our incarcerated neighbors. Talks and workshops are offered on a sliding scale. Reach out to info@thenewgardensociety.org to learn more.