Instructor: Erin Backus

Erin Backus
Erin Backus, M.S., CRC, HTR is the Greenhouse Manager and Workshop Coordinator for Copia Home and Garden in South Salem, NY. Erin has a Bachelor's degree in Plant Science from SUNY Cobleskill, a Master's in Rehabilitation Counseling from SUNY Buffalo and her horticultural therapy certificate through the Horticultural Therapy Institute in Colorado. Erin's garden internships include Longwood Gardens, New England Wild Flower Society and Fairchild tropical gardens. She has worked as a gardener for the Quaker Hill Native plant garden in Pawling, New York and Gemini Botanical Garden in Manalapan, FL; specializing in native butterfly plant species. 
Within the rehabilitation field she has completed internships at Arms Acres in Carmel, New York and at the State of Connecticut's Bureau of Rehabilitation. Prior to returning to Graduate school Erin worked at Green Chimneys in Brewster, New York where she co-led the vocational horticulture program for students with autism, learning disorders, and mental health disorders and recently spent the last four years working at Silver Hill Hosptial in New Canaan, CT where she ran therapeutic horticulture groups for patients with mental health, substance use disorders and co-occurring disorders. 
Erin has been published in the American Horticultural Therapy Association magazine, North American Butterfly Association Butterfly Gardner magazine and on the Horticultural therapy Institute Blog. She is the owner of Plant Happiness, LLC where she acts as a distance supervisor for those working towards their registrations as a horticultural therapist. Lastly, Erin is an active member of the Northeast Horticultural Therapy Network as their president, on the national AHTA board and a volunteer butterfly consultant at the Pawling Nature Reserve.

Classes by this instructor