Nature and outdoors

Shoots with Roots field trip

Milner Gardens and Woodland8 hr 43 min by bus · 128.6 km

! $12.50 a child is over your $10 budget

Cost

$200 per class

$12.50 a child for 16

Ages & size

Ages not published

Up to 30 children

Duration

2.5 hours

April to August

Thu, Fri

Book by

Not published

Plan this trip

Fieldy handles all communication and booking for you.

What it actually looks like

Photos from Milner Gardens and Woodland's website

Our note

The $200 covers the whole group, so a class of 28 costs the same as a class of 12. Two of the five themes are written for grade 3 and up, so say the age of your children when you email and let them pick. Ask early about days other than Thursday and Friday, because they say they can sometimes fit you in.

What the children do

A single visit field trip of two and a half hours for one class or a community group, led by the Shoots with Roots coordinator and adapted to the ages and abilities of the group. There are five themes on the menu. Nature Observers, Junior Gardeners and Pollinators are offered for all ages. Birding for Beginners and Plant Detectives are for grade 3 and up. Pollinators runs in April and May only, the rest from April through August. The fee is $200 for the whole group rather than per student, and the maximum is one class, or 30 students for a community group. Field trips normally run on Thursdays and Fridays, and the page says other days can sometimes be squeezed in.

Move around the forest, garden and natural ponds doing short hands on sensory activities, then get guided exploration time at their own pace. Depending on the theme they may water the food garden, plant seeds in newspaper pots to take home, dig soil and pull weeds, count birds for a list that gets uploaded afterwards, or pollinate flowers themselves with paintbrushes.

Good to know

Washrooms are on site and accessible, and most are private and gender neutral. Staff say they keep the whole group on step free routes during school programs. Nothing is published about where a group eats or where a bus parks, so ask when you book.

Sources disagree. Their own pages give two different addresses for the person who runs the school programs, one short and one long form of the same name. If one bounces, try the other, or use the general garden address. Worth settling when you book.

Washrooms

Accessible washrooms can be found at the Welcome and Interpretive Centre, Pool House Gift Shop and Milner House. Most of our washrooms are private and gender neutral. There are gendered washrooms with stalls in Milner House. We rarely visit these washrooms with school groups or day camps.

Lunch space

Needs confirmation

Rain backup

Our programs run rain or shine. Please discuss appropriate clothing and footwear with your students. We may cancel a program on the rare occasion that extreme weather such as high winds or heavy snow presents a safety risk.

Strollers

A 6 or 8 person shuttle cart is available to transport guests from the Welcome and Interpretive Centre down to Milner House and back. It can accommodate collapsible wheelchairs, walkers and strollers on the back. The Milner property is a long, gentle slope of trails and roadways that some guests with wheelchairs, walkers or strollers may find challenging to push back up.

Wheelchair access

The Welcome Centre, teaching shelter, and our indoor classroom space are wheelchair accessible. Our trails are a mixture of hard-packed gravel, wooden plank boardwalks, and woodchip trails. We have wheelchair accessible gardening planters in our Food Garden. There are some areas, such as rock paths, steps, and lawns, that may require wheelchair users to take an alternate route. We do our best to use wheelchair accessible routes for the whole group during school programs.

Bus parking

Needs confirmation

Nearby park

Needs confirmation

Restrictions

No pets are permitted on the grounds except for certified guide dogs.. The harvesting/cutting of any plant material for consuming, selling or personal use is not permitted. All plants and what they may produce are property of Milner Gardens & Woodland.. Smoking is only permitted in the designated smoking area outside the Pool House Gift Shop.. Garden admission is cut off 30 minutes before closing. We recommend giving yourself at least one hour in the Gardens.. Payment of admission is required to access Milner House, the Camellia Tea Room, the Plant Sales Nursery, and the Pool House Gift Shop.. The Welcome Centre accepts cash, debit and credit. Plant Sales, Pool House Gift Shop and Camellia Tea Room take debit/credit only, no cash. AMEX is not accepted anywhere onsite.

Getting there

2179 Island Hwy W, Qualicum Beach, BC V9K 1G1

On foot

27 hr 57 min

too far with this group

By bus

8 hr 43 min

includes a 9 min wait

Driving

4 hr 5 min

The dark pin is Victoria.

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Details checked on 2026-09-07 against the venue’s own pages. Something wrong? , it takes one tap. · Venue page · 250-740-6383