perbennials

From planting a seed to selling a potted plant, we facilitate fun and rewarding horticulture activities, adapted to focus on a variety of life skills and fit a range of environments.

The History of PerBennials

2008 – 2012:

The idea for a perennial project was inspired by an article about a young boy who started a Hosta business. Live Work Learn’s founder, Joyce Morris, learned about how easy it is to split perennial plants to propagate them, and started growing perennials to sell with her son, Ben, in their backyard. Ben liked to run the hose and build rivers/dams down the hill, so working in the garden was a natural next step to a meaningful activity.

After many hours together in the backyard creating inventory, it was time to move into sales. A family friend, “Papa Joe”, refurbished an old push cart for us. Ben’s sister, Casey, came up with the name and the project began! We established life skills to work on at each step: buying supplies, following multi-step directions, carrying and transporting using a push cart and wheelbarrow, and watering the plants. We sold plants at a Farmers Market and donated plants for the Autism Society Gala auction.

2017

After Ben graduated from The School At Springbrook in Oneonta, NY and returned to the Capital Region, we brought the project back. That summer, we did a project with Schenectady ARC potting and selling plants.

2021

As we started to think about how to bring Live Work Learn programming back after the COVID-19 shutdown, we decided to start up a new inventory of plants at the Capital Roots Garden in Cohoes.

2022

PerBennials came back in full swing! We ran a program at Bring On The Spectrum potting and selling plants. We also managed our own project with Ben, potting plants at his home in Scotia with the other residents and staff, and selling those plants at Jay Street Collective.

2023

We are currently growing our inventory of plants at both Capital Roots Garden and a family campground at Piseco Lake in the Adirondack Mountains.

We partnered with Wildwood Programs this June, and have space for additional community partnerships. Contact us to learn more about partner opportunities!