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Classes & Events
2025 Medicinal Herb Garden Walks
Led by herbalist and Biodynamic gardener Deb Soule
Join herbalist and gardener Deb Soule in exploring the lush beauty of the medicinal herb gardens at Avena Botanicals in Rockport, Maine -- just a ten minute drive from the beautiful ocean coast. Deb is the author of the book The Healing Garden, an inspiring guide to herb gardening and crafting herbal remedies. She is the founder of Avena Botanicals, an herbal apothecary that grows ingredients for its artisanal herbal products in the gardens she began creating there decades ago.
In this delightful hour-long tour, Deb will invite you into the pollinator Sanctuary Garden, where you will learn about a variety of medicinal plants that you can add to your own garden for your own beneficial use. Many of these herbs are also of benefit to hummingbirds, bees, butterflies, and other pollinators.
We are offering only a few limited attendance herb walks in the summer of 2025. Please join us! Children ages four and under may attend the event for free. Adults and children ages 5 and older may buy a general admission ticket. No tickets will be sold at the gate on the day of the event.
Please limit your attendance to one garden walk per summer, to give others who are interested an opportunity to attend. Spaces are limited and tickets sell out each year.
If you appreciate our work, please also consider donating to support our pollinator Sanctuary Garden.
Event Dates:
Wednesday, June 18, 3-4 pm ** Full, Waitlist Available **Wednesday, July 2, 3-4 pm ** Full, Waitlist Available **
Wednesday, July 16, 3-4 pm ** Full, Waitlist Available **
Wednesday, August 6, 3-4 pm ** Full, Waitlist Available **
Tickets must be purchased online in advance; no tickets will be sold at the gate on the day of the event.
🌺 The Rose Retreat: A One-Day Plant Initiation
June 21, 2025 — Avena Botanicals, Rockport, Maine
Facilitated by Deb Soule and Lauren Valle
Cost: $175 - $225 (sliding scale)
Join us for full-day immersion with our beloved Rosa Rugosa at the beautiful Biodynamic gardens of Avena Botanicals Sanctuary that have been tended by gardener and herbalist Deb Soule for over 29 years.
Deb planted Avena's magnificent hedge row of Rosa Rugosa twenty years ago to offer the healing gifts of Rose to the world. The Rose Retreat is an incredible opportunity to be steeped in the humming vibrations of the soil, plants, and pollinators at Avena who have been nourished and honored for so many years. You will be re-calibrated toward wholeness and joy during your time in the gardens.
A plant initiation is an opportunity to be in ceremony with a plant where the plant is honored as the teacher, guide and initiator. Plants are dynamic beings who work with us on all levels — physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. Plants have the ability to touch us deeply and profoundly transform our lives. They guide us in letting go of what we no longer need and aligning with our highest purpose and the work we came here to do in our lifetimes.
This event is not a teaching day — Deb and Lauren will serve as facilitators, holding space for you to move into deeper relationship with Rose, and for Rose to meet you where you are at. You will have your own direct experience of Rose that is personal to you.
Several times during our ceremony with Rose, we will ingest an elixir made ceremonially from different parts of the plant. To deepen our relationship with Rose, we will engage in sensory and meditative practices as well as creativity and dreaming. Comfort with, and openness to, communing with plants is recommended for this retreat.
➡️ Learn more and Register Here
🌺 Living with Hummingbirds Workshop
September 12, 13, and 14, 2025 — Avena Botanicals, Rockport, Maine
Taught by Dr. Rocio Alarcón, with garden walks by Deb Soule
Cost: $395 (includes 2 dinners & 2 lunches)
Join us for a heart-opening weekend with Ecuadorian ethnobotanist and healer Dr. Rocio Alarcón, as we step into a sacred journey exploring the physical and spiritual world of hummingbirds — beloved messengers of joy and divine 'oracles of light'. Over three days, we will honor the hummingbird as a teacher, a healer, and a guide through ritual, science, and story.
➡️ Learn more and Register Here
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