As an engaging speaker and an award-winning blogger since 2006 on Toronto Gardens, Helen Battersby has shared inspiration and images from her garden travels in Canada, the US, UK, Europe and, soon, New Zealand and Australia.
In 2017, Helen became co-publisher of The Toronto & Golden Horseshoe Gardener’s Journal; 2022 marked its Gold Medal-winning 30th Edition. Updated for 2026 as a Canada-wide resource, the Journal has already won a second Gold award. Helen is the past Director for the international region of GardenComm, the association for garden communicators.
To her passion for all things gardeny, she brings the visual storytelling panache of a long freelance writing and creative consulting career in the graphic design field, harnessing the power of words and pictures.
Education
Helen is a graduate in landscape design from Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson), where her thesis team shared the Shawn Gallaugher Design Excellence Award. She also holds a horticulture certificate from University of Guelph.
Adding to a fine arts B.A. in theatre performance from Toronto’s York University, she studied marketing and journalism at Toronto Met, and poetry at the University of Toronto and the Humber School for Writers.
And in other news
For 20 years, Helen served as a volunteer with the Toronto Master Gardeners. Her special interest was creating and delivering garden presentations – accurate, informative and visually engaging.
Hooked on power walking since 2003, she also put four full marathons, 45+ half marathons, and many 5-16K races under her feet. She’d be much faster if she didn’t keep stopping to take pictures of gardens.