The youth of today are the gardeners of tomorrow.

ROSEY GIRLS YOUTH GARDEN CLUB

Based on guidelines of the Garden Club of North Carolina, we seek to inspire members of our youth garden clubs with a life-long love of gardening and the natural world, not only to improve and maintain our environment but also to share the sheer fun of “digging in the dirt".

The Rosey Girls Youth Garden Club (grades 3 through 6) meets monthly at the Raleigh Girls Club. Meetings are usually the first Monday of the month (depending upon holidays) from 4:30 – 6:15 pm. Setup at 3:30pm.

At our meetings the girls participate in an activity related to gardening. Their Club projects are a bird sanctuary, vegetable garden and a pollinator garden. Other activities include art projects like preparing posters for GCNC and NGC competitions as well as making table favors for RGC and GCNC events.

If you would like to join the fun and help with the Rosey Girls Club, contact Sandy Purvis or Barbara Ketchum.

THE ROSEY GIRLS GARDEN

There are several gardens at the Girls Club that the Rosey Girls and their volunteer leaders maintain.
In the early spring (March), the Rosey Girls each have their own 2-foot by 2-foot vegetable gardens that they plant and maintain, by planting seeds of carrots, beets, lettuce, radishes, and celery. They are ready for harvest between May and June to take home. The staff plant additional summer vegetables in May and June, like tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, cabbage, and broccoli.
The produce from the vegetable garden is given to the girls to take home during the school year or placed at the entrance of the Raleigh Girls Club for parents to take. In the summer when the girls are at summer day camp, the produce is donated the food to the Dorcas Ministries Food Pantry in Cary.

Until May 2025, we’ve had a flower garden of non-native flowers. Through our greater understanding of ecology and conservation, we replaced it with a native, flowering pollinator garden. We were gifted left-over native plants from a spring plant sale to start this new garden. Over that summer, we found that 8 mountain mint plants overtook this garden. So, recently after the second growing season, we dug them up and added more clumping types of plants like asters, a button bush, some echinacea, salvia, milkweed, monarda and more.

This past month, October 2026, 11 Rosey Girls participated in planting over 100 alliums, crocus, daffodils, hyacinths, and more. Later, after the bulbs die back, we’ll plant annual flowers for insects. It’s part of a Monarch butterfly focus we’re doing this year with lots of other activities tied in to this subject.
Although not a working garden, a former, neglected bed that never did well because of the inadequate sunlight from 2 buildings, was repurposed as a winter insect hibernation site. The Rosey Girls added grass clippings, leaves, hardwood logs, and evergreen boughs to it. A 6-foot woven wire fence from a former project, was folded in half and placed around its perimeter to keep the recycled bits of nature inside.

If you would like more information on the gardens at the Girls Club or the Rosey Girls club, contact Sandy Purvis or Barbara Ketchum.

JEFFREYS GROVE GARDEN CLUB

Jeffreys Grove Garden Club was created in Spring 2025 by 3 moms and a 5th grade teacher.

Our goal is to get kids outside, teach them how to appreciate and enjoy nature, care for the Earth, and to discover the pride that comes with starting something from a tiny seed and nurturing it as it grows and create something wonderful. We aim to teach students to be good stewards of the earth by utilizing recycled items as much as possible, picking up trash around the school, and beautifying the campus by planting flowers. We also aim to teach students about the health benefits of the fruits, vegetables, and herbs that we are growing. The kids will also learn about composting, pollinator gardens, and so much more. Each week, we work on caring for our plants, learning about a garden related topic, and doing a fun craft.

Our club meets weekly on Tuesdays, Sept 8th, and will run through Nov 17th, 2026. Time: 3:45 - 5pm.

Please also know you have to register as a volunteer with Wake County Public Schools. This is a 1 time registration that lasts for a full year.
https://myvolunteer.com/wcpss/volunteer/login

COLLEGE SCHOLARSHIPS AND INTERN PROGRAM

The Raleigh Garden Scholarship

An NCSU HORTICULTURE SCHOLARSHIP

One of RGC’s four main objectives is to “assist in educating youth through programs and scholarships.” A major initiative supporting this goal was the establishment of the RGC Endowed Scholarship, a significant project undertaken by the Club in the 1990s and early 2000s. Through successful plant sales, members raised enough funds to create the original endowment, which was transferred to the management of the NC Agricultural Foundation in 2008. The scholarship supports undergraduate students in the Department of Horticultural Science who are North Carolina residents. Recipients are selected based on academic achievement, merit, and a demonstrated interest in horticulture, landscape design, or environmental conservation within the field of horticultural science.

The endowment is currently over $150,000 thanks to the large contribution last year from the estate of Ginny Parker, RGC past president and beloved member. This year the plan for the Scholarship Committee is to broaden the support for the Scholarship among Club members and also to give recipients at NCSU a better understanding of our Club.

This year’s recipients (for the academic year beginning August 2025) are: Mr. Michael Carter, Mr. Claiborne Isom, and Ms. Delaney Padgett. More information about them will be forthcoming in the Leaflet and hopefully they will come join us for a meeting and introduce themselves.

JC RAULSTON ARBORETUM
SUMMER INTERN PROGRAM

The Club contributes funds from our community donations budget to a work/study program for horticulture students to work at the JC Raulston Arboretum during the summer.

This summer’s intern wrote:

Thank you so much for your contribution to the Summer Intern program at JCRA. I’m a rising junior studying Horticulture Science with concentration in landscape design at NC State. I would like to start a community garden around the US or work in an arboretum for my career. This summer has been full of plant ID, lots of mulching, many propagations, and so much fun. Thank you so much for supporting this incredible opportunity, it meant so much.