Zhenia Nagorny
Sustainability Educator + Culture of Care Steward
About Zhenia
Zhenia is a sustainability educator, a fierce advocate for public gardens, a community writer, and a healing practitioner.
Since joining the Maple Street Community Garden in 2016, she has played a leading role in the garden’s growth and leadership development, particularly through the compost, communications, and arts committees. Her work centers on cultivating cultures of care, collaboration, and sustainability within community spaces. Zhenia believes that gardeners are already nurturing seeds of care in their communities and is passionate about sharing practices that support mindful leadership, collective growth, and mutual inspiration.
Zhenia is also a multi-modality healing practitioner who specializes in moving and restoring energy - through Reiki, Sound Healing and Creativity - to help her clients connect to the spaciousness, peace and resilience within. Click here to learn more.
Sustainability ~ Care ~ Joy ~ Celebration ~ Belonging ~ Community
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Sustainability ~ Care ~ Joy ~ Celebration ~ Belonging ~ Community ·
Upcoming trainings + Talks
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Thursday, October 8, 2026 11-12pm
In this workshop, we will explore what it means to cultivate a sustainable garden culture rooted in care, collaboration, and interdependence rather than patterns of overwork that lead to burnout. Together, we will examine how garden leaders, coordinators, and organizers can move away from models of individual responsibility and instead embrace shared leadership, mutual support, and collective learning. By creating space for mistakes, reflection, and growth, we can build systems that are compassionate, organized, resilient, and adaptable.
Topics will include:
Building a culture of care: honoring personal and collective capacity
Understanding, supporting, and valuing volunteers
Key components of a sustainable garden culture
Past trainings + Talks
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Designed for garden leaders, coordinators, and organizers, this 3-day training with GreenThumb NYC explores what a sustainable garden culture looks like when we prioritize relationships, care, and interdependence instead of overwork that leads to burnout.
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What would it look like if gardens centered their approach towards volunteers as sustainable?
In this 2005 talk + tour for the National GrowTogether Conference, Zhenia discusses the importance of creating a culture that respects all volunteers, (including their health, individual lives and availability, and volunteer expectations/commitments), centers communication and accountability and allows space for change, innovation and creative thinking.
Field Notes:
Reflections on leadership, belonging, and cultivating sustainable communities.
Let’s Work Together
