Page Dickey Grant for American Gardens

This year, we are pleased to award the Page Dickey Grant for American Gardens, an endowed $10,000 grant, to Garden Time in Providence, RI. Garden Time provides prison-based garden education programs and prepares incarcerated individuals for the workforce by supporting successful transitions to reentry and long-term employment.



In 2011, Garden Time's Co-Founders worked with inmates at the men's maximum security facility at the Rhode Island Adult Correctional Institutions to build a garden in the empty section of the prison yard. Since then, they have added two more gardens at other facilities within the complex and trained 300 incarcerated men and women to become skilled gardeners. While producing thousands of pounds of produce for the prison kitchen, participants have also gained a positive outlook and a new connection to nature. In 2017, Garden Time expanded their work to include a pre-employment program at the men's medium-security facility offering important life skills and job training for the green industry with reentry planning and support.



In 2020, Garden Time partnered with OpenDoors, a Providence-based nonprofit that supports formerly incarcerated individuals reenter society, to build a Reentry Community Garden offering a space to perform reentry planning, job coaching, and continuing plant-based education. To further extend opportunities for released students, Garden Time piloted a tree care and environmental justice training program in 2021 allowing formerly incarcerated Rhode Islanders to learn technical skills related to tree care and other green industries through classroom and hands-on instruction.

We are honored to support the life-changing work Garden Time offers incarcerated and formerly incarcerated individuals. If you'd like to learn more or support the work of Garden Time, please visit their website.


At any organization there exist individuals whose distinct fingerprints will remain far beyond their official years of service. At the Garden Conservancy, there have been few as extraordinary as our dear friend and longtime board member Page Dickey. To honor her lasting impact on the Conservancy and the national gardening community, we are pleased to launch the Page Dickey Grant for American Gardens.

More than thirty years ago, Page Dickey served on Frank Cabot's advisory committee to help launch the Garden Conservancy and went on to cofound the Conservancy's celebrated Open Days program. Since the launch of the program in 1995, Open Days has welcomed over 1.35 million visitors into thousands of inspired private landscapes. We are tremendously grateful for Page’s singular impact on both the Conservancy and the national gardening community.

Beyond her service to our organization, Page is an unmatched voice in the realm of garden writing. The author of eight books, she has written of the material challenges and successes of creating her own gardens, Duck Hill and Church House, and of transcendent notions such as the spirit of place. She is both garden designer and philosopher, and her distinct perspective is an inspiration for so many passionate gardeners. 

To honor Page’s lasting contributions to the Garden Conservancy and to garden enthusiasts nationwide, we are delighted to announce the Page Dickey Grant for American Gardens, a grant of $10,000, which will be awarded each year to a distinguished small public garden making a significant impact in its community through garden-based programming.  

The Page Dickey Grant for American Gardens is part of our Garden Conservancy Grant Program.


If you would like to support this initiative, please consider making a donation in support of the Page Dickey Grant for American Gardens

Please select "Page Dickey Grant for American Gardens" in the donation dropdown to allocate your gift to this initiative. 100% of gifts designated this way will be included in the permanent Page Dickey endowed fund.

You may also make a donation over the phone by calling Sarah Parker at 845.424.6500, M-F, 9-5 Eastern

Help support the Page Dickey Grant for American Gardens

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