Hillsborough Garden Club Announces Spring 2024 Grant Awards

The Hillsborough Garden Club has named three successful applicants for community grant awards: Historic Hillsborough Commission/Burwell School will receive $750 for trees and shrubs to support refurbishment of the Carrie Waitt Spurgeon historic gardens. The Wendy Olsen Arboretum, Inc. will receive $2,000 to develop their nonprofit organizational infrastructure. The Hillsborough Community Garden will obtain $1,421 to establish a seating area near the Riverwalk to educate visitors and potential volunteers about how to get involved in improving local food security.

The Burwell School’s two-hundred-year-old gardens will be restored by volunteers under the direction of Master Gardener Sharon Billings. These gardens grew food for the Burwell family and included historic plants of the era. Mrs. Burwell is particularly associated with the white musk rose (Rosa moschata), an old and rare rose originally brought from England. Today, the Burwell School Historic Site has a musk rose plant grown from a clipping taken from Mrs. Burwell’s gravesite. The School will conduct educational programs to share these refurbished historic gardens with the community.

Wendy Olsen Arboretum, located in West Hillsborough, is a level one certified arboretum focused on native and keystone trees and plants. The property has a mix of riparian, upland, shade and sun within three acres. The demonstration gardens feature plants that support local wildlife including birds, insects and mammals, many of which are pollinators. Many local volunteers have cleared trash from the stream and have assisted in building trails and other improvements. On March 17 they held a seed exchange and plant swap and built birdhouses to be sold at the Hillsborough Garden Club Plant Sale on May 11. 

Last year the Hillsborough Community Garden provided 934 pounds of produce to food-insecure families that PORCH-Hillsborough serves in the Fairview and Cedar Grove communities. That effort takes a lot of volunteer help, and, like many other community gardens, the Community Garden needs more volunteers. Visitors will soon have a shady place to learn how they can get involved. The Community Garden will create a seating area on the Riverwalk in front of the garden entrance where current volunteers will acquaint visitors with the garden and invite them to step inside for a guided tour, at which point “we hope the garden itself will perform its unique magic.”  

Support for these community grants comes from fund-raising activities by the members of the Hillsborough Garden Club, such as the Spring Garden Tour and the Plant Sale, which occur on alternate years.

The 2024 Plant Sale will be 9am-2pm May 11 at the Exchange Club, 331 Exchange Park Lane, Hillsborough.

For more information www.hillsboroughgardenclubnc.org. 

The next deadline for Hillsborough Garden Club community grant applications is September 15, 2024. See details at www.hillsboroughgardenclubnc.org.