Volunteering at the Garden

It takes many hands to help a garden grow!  Paul J. Ciener Botanical Garden’s volunteers contribute their talents, enthusiasm and energy to many different areas within the daily and seasonal functions of the Garden.  Our dedicated volunteers enjoy the beauty of nature, while playing important roles from horticulture to special events and educational tours while they generously give their gift of time to the Garden.

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Volunteer Opportunities at the Garden:

• Gardening - Planting, weeding, mulching, digging, raking and pruning

• Welcome Center Desk - Answering the phone, meeting, greeting and introducing the Garden to our visitors

• Retail Sales - Fall and Spring plant sales, Dolores and Wyatt LeFever Garden Gift Shop

• Special Events – Assisting with special events such as concerts, lectures, plant sales, symposia, etc.

• Tour Guide/Docent - Leading tours through our Welcome Center and Gardens for scheduled groups

• Special Skills you would like to share

For more information about becoming a Volunteer, please contact Toni Hays at 336-996-7888, tonihays@pjcbg.org.

Volunteers of the Season

Oh, how we love our Volunteers!  It takes many hands to help a garden grow and our Volunteers share their talents, enthusiasm and energy in many different areas within the daily and seasonal functions of the Garden, enjoying the beauty of nature, while playing important roles from horticulture to special events and educational tours.  Our Volunteers generously give their gift of time and are the heart of Paul J. Ciener Botanical Garden. 

For weeks in April, the Garden is filled with hundreds to thousands of visitors, photographers, families and tour groups.  Every year, the formal garden gets a dose of approximately 15,000 tulips, 7,000 daffodils and 3,000 miscellaneous bulbs. If only we could find a way to bring thousands of visitors to our Garden during non-peak months. So . . . we all decided to work on a light display specifically for the holidays!

Since the beginning of 2019, several volunteers returned to the Garden specifically for a Christmas project.  Meeting here at the Garden monthly and at Jan Wood’s home, they collected, cleaned, cut, painted and assembled thousands of 16 oz., 1 liter and 2 liter bottles.  Putting in hundreds of hours each, what began as a simple thought turned into a masterpiece.  To get the desired characteristics, we turned to our friends at  

Brent & Becky’s Bulbs and modeled the tulips in their catalogs. The bottles, once cleaned and cut in half,

into 3 petals (2 bottoms make 1 flower or 2 tops make 1 flower), spray painted and assembled onto small, green bamboo stakes.  And . . . the result of all of their hard work was our first Spectacular Tulip Holiday Bloom displayed from Thanksgiving through the first week in January!

Our Volunteers for the Season are Sandra Beeson-Grose, Mary Lu Braxton, Mary Burnett, Graham Ciener, Jayne Danner, Malika Fleak, Joan Holder, Jim Hout, Jill Jerez, Dottie Kula, Lynn Liddick, Trish Sprague, Patty Stone, Nina Sweet, Sylvia Tazbir, Pat Thomas, Anna Warner and Jan Wood,  Please join us in thanking them for all of their hard work and support of the Garden. As a small token of the Garden’s appreciation, they will honored at a luncheon at the Garden