An Analysis of the Current Status and Curriculum of Citizen Gardener Training Courses in Korea

Article information

J. People Plants Environ. 2025;28(5):659-668

Publication date (electronic) : 2025 October 31

doi : https://doi.org/10.11628/ksppe.2025.28.5.659

Yong Hyun Kim¹, Moo-Ryong Huh^2,3,

¹Assistant Professor, Department of Practical Arts Education, Chinju National University of Education, Jinju 52673, Republic of Korea

²Professor, Division of Horticultural Science, Gyeongsang National University, Jinju 52828, Republic of Korea

³Research Director, Institute of Agriculture and Life Science, Gyeongsang National University, Jinju, 52828, Republic of Korea

^*Corresponding author: Moo-Ryong Huh, mrhuh@gnu.ac.kr, https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8562-4901

First authorYong Hyun Kim, yonghyun@cue.ac.kr, https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1913-3041

Received 2025 May 5; Revised 2025 August 7; Accepted 2025 September 15.

Abstract

Introduction

With the revision of the ｢Act on the Creation and Promotion of Arboretums and Gardens (abbreviated as ‘Arboretum and Garden Act’)｣ in 2015, a legal basis for garden promotion was established, leading to a rapid spread of garden culture and increasing interest in education and activities related to garden creation (Lee et al., 2017). Consequently, activists known as ‘citizen gardeners’ are engaging in activities such as planting and maintaining flowers and trees across the country to spread garden culture, thereby creating green environments within communities positively impacting the quality of life of residents and fostering cultural communities through gardens (Park, 2021). In South Korea, citizen gardener education originated from the Landscape Garden University education program in 2006, and has been ongoing since the establishment of a citizen gardener system certified by the Governor of Gyeonggi Province in 2013 (Park, 2021). Following the revision of the Arboretum and Garden Act, the mandatory placement of professional garden managers in national, local, and private gardens has increased the need for garden education. Consequently, local governments are enacting ordinances to train citizen gardeners to enhance their expertise in gardening and to promote garden culture in everyday life (Oh, 2024). Owing to the revision of the law and the enactment of ordinances by local governments, many local governments are operating citizen gardener training courses and conducting educational programs. However, issues such as differences in the educational content required for citizen gardeners, varying educational systems and content provided by local governments, disparities in educational levels among graduates, and low satisfaction among graduates have arisen. To address these problems, some studies have compared the educational situation of local governments or conducted research to improve the satisfaction of citizen gardener training courses and enhance the overall educational level of citizen gardeners (Park, 2021; Park et al., 2022; Oh, 2024).

Garden education, similar to the citizen gardener program, was established earlier overseas than domestically and has been offered extensively to the public. For instance, in the United States, the ‘Master Gardener’ program was first developed in 1973 at Washington State University based on urban horticulture, enabling individuals to act as volunteer educators within their communities, manage parks, botanical gardens, and gardens, enhance personal quality of life, physical health, social skills, and simultaneously creating public value (Kwak et al., 2001; Waliczek et al., 2002; Kim and Han, 2020). The Master Gardener program in the U.S. provides a minimum of 80 h of education across four fields and 20 subjects, including general knowledge, professional expertise (horticultural plant cultivation, gardening, etc.), practical training, and course introduction and evaluation (Park, 2021). In the United Kingdom, where the history and culture of gardens have long been established, nonprofit organizations and charities fulfill the role of citizen gardeners. Among them, the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) is committed to expanding the base of garden culture and industry in the UK through the publication of various educational materials, garden culture activities such as the Chelsea Flower Show, and support for professional plant research, thus promoting a citizen-centered garden culture (Cho and Sung, 2016). Diverse garden education and support have been provided to citizens to establish a garden culture with systematic educational processes in place.

Regarding domestic research on citizen gardeners and garden education, Son and Kim (2015) analyzed the educational satisfaction of graduates from the Gyeonggi Province citizen gardener program and reported that improvements in overall educational satisfaction, instructional design, instructors, and educational conditions had a relatively large impact. They suggested that practical education, including understanding and managing plants and garden creation, should be reflected in the curriculum and that there is a need for advanced and connected education to cultivate practical skills related to plants and gardens, along with increased practical training time. Park et al. (2022) analyzed the curriculum and program development for citizen gardener education, revealing that activities involving garden creation in teams increased trainee satisfaction. Oh (2024) conducted operational monitoring of a citizen gardener training course supported by national grants from 2020 to 2021, analyzed the operational status and satisfaction of the curriculum, and identified differences in educational operation systems among local governments. To resolve the varying levels of citizen gardener training, it is necessary to establish a universal educational system that ensures a certain level of professional knowledge among citizen gardeners at each educational institution.

This study aimed to analyze the operational status and curriculum of citizen gardener training courses nationwide, which have been running for over a decade since the initiation of the Gyeonggi Province citizen gardener training course from 2013 until 2024. This study sought to understand the current status of citizen gardener training courses by identifying curriculum differences according to operational methods and regions. Additionally, through this investigation and analysis, this study aimed to provide the foundational data necessary for developing and operating standardized training programs for citizen gardeners, addressing one of the current operational issues related to regional curriculum composition differences.

Research Methods

Data analysis method

In data analysis, the regions were largely divided into eight regions for analysis. Seoul Metropolitan City, Incheon Metropolitan City, and Gyeonggi Province were included in the Capital area, Daejeon Metropolitan City and Sejong Metropolitan City were included in Chungcheongnam-do, Daegu Metropolitan City was included in Gyeongsangbukdo, Busan Metropolitan City and Ulsan Metropolitan City were included in Gyeongsangnam-do, and Jeju Special City and Gwangju Metropolitan City were included in Jeollanam-do.

The collected course contents were coded in Microsoft Office EXCEL program, and the coding contents included region, course opening time, course, operation type, theoretical and practical training hours, total training hours, and curriculum analyses. In the case of region, opening time, course, and type of course, data from all 71 regions with citizen gardener training programs were entered. In the case of detailed curriculum contents (theoretical and practical training hours, total training hours, and curriculum analysis), data from 54 regions, excluding 17 regions where data could not be collected, were entered and compared. The analysis of curriculum contents was classified into seven fields as shown in Table 1, referring to the educational field standards of citizen gardeners in Gyeonggi-do, which has the oldest citizen gardener training program (plant understanding, plant care, garden creation, self-development, and free choice) and the subjects of “Introduction to Garden Science” published by the Korean Garden Design Association (2023) (overview of garden, history of garden, garden design, garden materials, garden construction, garden planting management, garden facility management, and plant physiology). The data coded in the EXCEL program were analyzed using the IBM SPSS 25 statistical package for frequency analysis, descriptive statistics, independent samples t-test, and one-way analysis of variance at the 95% significance level.

Table 1

Classification criteria for curriculum content

Results and Discussion

Status of citizen gardener training programs in Korea

Analysis of the number of citizen gardener training programs by region (Table 2) showed that the Seoul metropolitan area had the highest number of programs, with 25 (35.2%), followed by Chungcheongnam-do and Jeonnam-do with 11 (15.5%) each, Jeonbuk-do and Gyeongnam-do with six (8.5%) each, Gangwon-do with five (7.0%), and Chungbuk-do with four (5.6%). The lowest number of regions was Gyeongbuk with three (4.2%). According to Park’s (2022) study, the reason for the surge in citizen gardener training programs, starting with the Seoul metropolitan area, is that Gyeonggi-do first enacted the “Gyeonggi-do Garden Culture Industry Promotion Ordinance” in 2017, which regulates matters such as citizen gardener training and certification, utilization, and support. In addition, after Gyeonggi-do, Chungnam-do and Jeonnam-do have the highest number of citizen gardener training courses, which may be owing to the fact that Suncheon Bay National Garden, the No. 1 national garden in Korea, is located in Jeonnam-do, and there may have been a high demand for garden education around it, while Chungnam-do is home to the Sejong National Arboretum, which has influenced the surrounding area.

Table 2

Status of citizen gardener training course operation by region (N = 71)

According to a survey of the timing of citizen gardener training programs in Korea (Fig. 1), excluding the 9 regions where the start date of training could not be confirmed, the first to open was Yangju City, Gyeonggi-do in 2013, followed by Suwon City, Gyeonggi-do in 2014, Seoul Metropolitan Government in 2015, Seongnam City, Gyeonggi-do, Goyang City, and Suncheon, Jeollanam-do in 2018, and then one additional location per year until 2019, when the number of locations surged to 13. This was followed by 11 regions in 2020, seven regions in 2021, and 10 regions each in 2022 and 2023. The reason for the surge in the number of citizen gardener training programs in 2019 and their decline in 2020 and 2021 is thought to be the difficulties in conducting training programs for many local governments due to social distancing and the implementation of non-face-to-face education in the education sector as a whole due to the global COVID-19 outbreak in December 2019. However, the number of regions offering courses by 2022 may increase as social distancing increases in April 2022, making it easier to conduct offline courses again. However, in 2024, two regions showed that citizen gardener training courses were newly established, which may be because of the fact that the data was collected in February to April and the survey was conducted at the beginning of the year.

Fig. 1

Citizen gardener training course opening period by year. Note. N = 62, excluding the 9 regions where the start date of training could not be confirmed.

In terms of the type of citizen gardener training program (Fig. 2), 56 regions (78.9%) operated the program as a single course, whereas 14 regions (19.7%) operated basic and advanced courses separately. In terms of how the training courses operate, administrative institutions such as agricultural technology centers in city and county governments run them directly (30 regions, 42.3%) and outsource them to universities or educational organizations in the city or county (36 regions, 50.7%).

Fig. 2

Form of operation of citizen gardener training course. A = Operation process, B = Operating entity.

Analysis of citizen gardener training program curriculum

Training hours

The results of the allocation of theory and practice time in the citizen gardener training program by region are shown in Table 3. Regarding the allocation of training time, the difference in the allocation of practical time was statistically significant when data from all regions were compared and analyzed. In the case of Gyeongbuk, the contents of the civic training curriculum could only be collected from one region, but it was determined that the number of hours of practical training in that region was 90 h, which was significantly higher than that of the other regions and statistically significant compared to the average number of hours of practical training in the other regions. Therefore, the statistical analysis was rerun, excluding the Gyeongbuk region, and there were no statistically significant differences in the allocation of theoretical training, practical training, or total training hours by region. When comparing the allocation of training hours by region, the overall average of theory hours was 28.5 h (SD = 13.9), with a minimum of 2 h and a maximum of 63 h. By region, Chungcheongbuk-do had the highest average of 33.8 h (SD = 25.6) and Gangwon-do had the lowest average of 18.5 h (SD = 11.4). Both the minimum and maximum number of theoretical hours allocated were found to be in the Seoul metropolitan area, with a minimum of 2 h and a maximum of 63 h. For practical hours, the overall average was 27.5 h (SD = 16.5), with a minimum of 3 h and a maximum of 90 h. When compared by region except Gyeongbuk, the Gyeongnam region had the most hours allocated with 43.5 h (SD = 19.1), and the Seoul metropolitan area had the least with 23.0 h (SD = 11.7). The minimum number of hours allocated to practice was three in the Seoul metropolitan area, and the maximum number of hours was 30 in Gyeongnam.

Table 3

Analysis of training hours for citizen gardener training course by region (unit: hour)

When comparing the ratio of theory to practice time in the curriculum, the overall average was 51.9% theory and 48.1% practice, which is nearly a 1:1 ratio. Jeonbuk (54.9%), Seoul (54.7%), and Chungnam (54.5%) allocated more to theory than practice, whereas Gyeongbuk (66.2%), Gyeongnam (57.0%), Gangwon (54.4%), Chungbuk (52.5%), and Jeonnam (51.1%) allocated more to practice than to theory. Most of these differences were not significant, except for those in Gyeongbuk.

Looking at the above results, it was confirmed that although the composition ratio of theoretical and practical education was different in some regions, the difference was not statistically significant, and overall, it was confirmed that the theoretical and practical education hours were composed similarly. A study by Strong and Harder (2011) confirmed that hands-on experience was crucial for increasing trainees’ interest and enthusiasm in Master Gardener training. Furthermore, Schorck et al. (2000) noted that the greatest benefit perceived by participants in Master Gardener training was not only the theoretical aspects of gardening but also the hands-on experience of creating gardens and cultivating plants. In addition, in a study by Zeybek (2025) reviewing the process of change in landscape achitecture education, it was confirmed that the content of recent landscape education has been incorporating invited lectures and practical activities into the class content, resulting in a balanced education of academic theory and practical application in landscape education, which is consistent with the results of this study that confirmed that the proportion of theory and practice is at a similar level. In this way, garden education should not end with just theoretical education, but should also include practical training. Although there were regional differences in minimum and maximum hours, the results of this study confirmed that, on average, the theoretical and practical time allocation within the training period was similar. This level is considered appropriate for the composition of the citizen gardener curriculum. Therefore, it is recommended that future research on the development of citizen gardener curriculum take this into account.

Son and Kim (2015) investigated citizen gardeners and found that the citizen gardener training curriculum needed to expand practical training, such as in plant management and garden creation, to cultivate practical skills in plants and gardens. In addition, Park et al. (2022) noted that creating a garden by organizing a team during garden education can increase educational satisfaction and foster professionalism. Based on these previous studies, the results of this study suggest that the current curriculum, which is composed of one-on-one theory and practice, on average, does not provide enough time for practical training to foster practical skills among citizen gardeners.

Curriculum content

When comparing the curriculum composition of the citizen gardener training programs by region (Fig. 3), the average overall composition was ‘Botany (22.0%)’, ‘Introduction (17.8%)’, ‘Management (15.5%)’, ‘Garden creation (15.4%)’, ‘Planning and design (13.7%)’, ‘other (10.1%)’, and ‘Field trip (5.6%)’. The curriculum composition varies by region. When looking at the composition of the curriculum in each region, the Seoul metropolitan area had a higher proportion of ‘Management (17.5%)’ and ‘other (16.2%)’ courses compared to other regions. Gangwon-do had a relatively high proportion of ‘Introduction (23.9%)’ and ‘Planning and design (23.2%)’ courses, with ‘Planning and design’ having the highest proportion of courses compared to other regions. Chungcheongbuk-do had the highest proportion of ‘Introduction (30.4%)’ compared to other regions, while Chungnam-do had a similar proportion to the overall average. In Jeonbuk, ‘Introduction (27.7%) and ‘Botany (24.3%)’ accounted for more than half of the total curriculum, while Jeonnam spent the least amount of time on ‘Introduction (8.8%)’ compared to other regions, while ‘Botany (27.5%)’ was allocated the most. The Gyeongbuk region allocated the least amount of time for ‘Management (7.4%)’ compared to other regions, and the Gyeongnam region allocated the least amount of time for ‘Garden creation (8.3%)’ compared to other regions. It was found that nationwide citizen gardener training courses had different curriculum composition ratios for each local government. These results are similar to those of Oh (2024), who studied the education system for citizen gardeners for two years in 2020 and 2021 and found that the contents of citizen gardeners’ education programs in various regions differed according to educational institutions. Currently, citizen gardener training courses are being held by many local governments after the implementation of the Garden Act, but there is no standardized curriculum plan, resulting in different training content for each local government (Oh, 2024). Oh (2024) mentioned the need to establish a universalized education system. Similar results were confirmed in this study, which analyzed data from the past 10 years rather than a two-year curriculum; it is necessary to train citizen gardeners with a certain level of garden-related expertise through unified educational content in the future.

Fig. 3

Composition ratio of education contents in citizen gardener training course by region (unit: %).

In order to check foreign cases in terms of educational content, we investigated related educational courses such as ‘Master Gardener’, which are similar to citizen gardeners, and found that the Master gardener course in the United States is conducted over 10 weeks with approximately 40–60 hours of lectures on ‘Vegetables’, ‘Houseplants’, ‘Compost’, ‘Fruits’, ‘Landscape Design’, ‘Wildlife Management’, ‘Botany’, ‘Plant Pathology’, ‘Lawn Care’, ‘Pruning, Soil and Fertilizer’(Jobe’s, 2019). The English Gardening School in the UK runs a variety of gardening education courses, mainly three courses: ‘Acclaimed Diploma Gardening Courses (hereinafter referred to as ‘ADGC’), ‘Distance Learning Gardening Courses’, and ‘Short Gardening Courses’. Among these, the one that is similar to the citizen gardener course is ‘ADGC’. ADGC was running the ‘Essential Garden Design Diploma’ course, which taught the overall aspects of garden design, and the ‘Good Gardening Diploma’ course, which provided more serious training in horticultural skills. The educational content for each course, ‘Essential Garden Design Diploma’, covers topics such as ‘Survey and analyze a site’, ‘Consider hard landscaping’, ‘Create a garden layout plan’, ‘Work up a planting plan’, ‘Create sections, details & mood boards’, and ‘Understand costing, billing and client relationship’. Through this, the educational goal was to improve the students’ basic garden drawing skills, field survey methods, garden layout planning, and garden planting skills. The curriculum of the ‘Good Gardening Diploma’ course consists of ‘Understand principles of taxonomy’, ‘Extend the seasons in your garden’, and ‘Care for and propagate plants’, and it teaches the skills of gardening by improving gardening knowledge and techniques (The English Gardening School, n.d.). While slightly different from the Citizen Gardener training program, the Inchbald School of Design’s gardening program is design-focused, focusing on how to create spaces with plants. In particular, the “Design Your Own Garden” course, a 13-week course, covers everything from spatial surveying and drawing conversion to landscape design using various materials, plant placement, and master planning. This course provides hands-on experience in garden planning, design, and planting (Inchbald, n.d.). Looking at the examples of foreign garden education programs mentioned above, we can see that the content of garden education largely focuses on garden design and horticultural techniques. This suggests that the core of garden education is to cultivate participants’ overall gardening skills, including planning and designing gardens, planting, and managing them. This point can also be confirmed in the results of a study on the educational satisfaction and motivation of participants in garden education. In the study by Schorck et al. (2000), it was confirmed that the greatest benefit gained from participating in the master gardener program was learning about various plants and gardening knowledge, and learning the process of creating a garden through practical experience. Additionally, Strong and Harder (2011) reported that the biggest motivation for participating in the master gardener program was to satisfy curiosity related to gardening, specifically, to satisfy the desire for knowledge and intellectual curiosity related to gardening and to gain practical experience. Although this part is a study on landscape achitecture education, it is also confirmed by the research results of Zeybek (2025), who confirmed that the perspective of landscape education has recently shifted from idealism to realism, the content of landscape education programs has shifted to a comprehensive curriculum, and design and practical activity classes that are considered suitable for modern practice have been integrated.

Based on these previous research results and foreign cases, we suggest that the curriculum for future garden education be structured around theoretical knowledge of garden plants and management methods in more detail, practical training on planting and management methods for various plants, and design methods for creating spaces with plants, in order to satisfy the participants’ motivation for participation and educational satisfaction. However, it is hoped that follow-up research will be conducted to develop a detailed curriculum plan by surveying experts and students regarding the amount of training content, the ratio of theory and practice time, and the content of the training.

In addition, we analyzed the cost of the curriculum by operating courses (single course or basic and advanced courses) separately (Table 4). For the Basics & Advanced courses, the content of classes conducted in both courses was analyzed and the average was compared with the results of the single-process analysis. Overall, the proportion of curriculum by program type was similar, but there were significant differences in the proportion of ‘Garden creation’ and ‘Field trip’ by program type. In the case of a single course, 17.3% of the courses were for ‘Garden creation,’ but in the case of separate basic and advanced courses, 7.6%, which is less than the single course. By contrast, the number of hours allocated to field trip training was higher in the basic and advanced courses (8.6%) than in the single course (4.8%). These results can be interpreted as suggesting that the single course program included more garden creation classes, while the basic and advanced courses included more field trips.

Table 4

Composition ratio of education contents in citizen gardener training course by operation process

Conclusion

When analyzing the operational status and curriculum of citizen gardener training programs, it was found that the majority of citizen gardener training programs were operated in the Seoul metropolitan area, with 25 regions (35.2%) operating citizen gardener training programs. Gyeonggi-do, which started operating the first citizen gardener training program in Korea in 2013, is the parent of the citizen gardener training program operated by local governments; it is old enough to produce about 1,300 citizen gardeners by 2023, so it is thought to have spread to Seoul and is operating the most citizen gardener training programs in the metropolitan area. In addition, 11 regions (15.5%) in Jeollanam-do and Chungnam-do operated citizen gardener training courses, and Suncheon Bay National Garden, the No. 1 national garden in Korea, is located in Jeollanam-do Therefore, there may have been a high demand for garden education in Chungnam-do, which may have influenced the surrounding areas.

In terms of the distribution of the timing of the opening of citizen gardener training courses in Korea, they started in Gyeonggi-do in 2013 and were gradually established in the metropolitan area (Gyeonggi-do) until 2018, and then in 2019, citizen gardener training courses were established in 13 regions.

In terms of the operation type of the citizen gardener training course, 56 regions (78.9%) operated the course as a single course and 36 regions (50.7%) outsourced it to a university or educational organization. In terms of training hours, the average was 28.5 h of theory and 27.5 h of practice, and when calculated as a ratio, the ratio was 51.9:48.1, indicating an approximately 1:1 ratio of theory to practice. Citizen gardeners not only have basic knowledge of plants and gardens but also various practical skills such as garden construction, flower bed construction, flower bed management, and lawn management. Therefore, practical training along with theory is very important for citizen gardeners, and it is necessary to allocate more time to practical training than is currently allocated in the curriculum.

Finally, in terms of the proportion of educational content, the overall average was ‘understanding plants’ and ‘field trips, but there were differences in the proportions depending on the region. This difference suggests that there may be regional differences in training citizen gardeners with a certain level of garden-related expertise with various training contents, rather than a unified training content for each institution. As such, citizen gardener training courses have been offered by many local governments since the implementation of the Garden Act; however, there is no standardized curriculum plan, resulting in different training content by local governments.

This study analyzed the current status of the citizen gardener training program and its curriculum to identify regional differences. This study aimed to establish basic data by analyzing the curriculum of the past ten years, starting with the 2013 Citizen Gardener Training Program in Gyeonggi-do. Based on the results of this study, we recommend a follow-up study to develop a standard curriculum for citizen gardeners by surveying citizen gardeners produced through the training program of citizen gardeners and related academics and field experts to investigate the deficiencies in citizen gardener training programs and the contents needed in the field.

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