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How Does Our Garden Grow? Volunteer and Donate

DONATE

If you share this vision and love of plants, you are invited to help us create the Rocky Mountain Botanic Gardens. We are a 501(c) 3 nonprofit organization accepting donations to purchase plants, equipment and water as part of our startup costs. Our federal tax payer ID number (EIN from the IRS) is 83-1572868. Scroll down to our 'Thanks' section to see all the wonderful groups who have contributed so far.

Please mail donations to:

Rocky Mountain Botanic Gardens, P.O. Box 613, Lyons, CO 80540

garima@rmbg.org

303-656-1909: Text or Call

You Can Donate by Credit Card--Simply Call or Text to Arrange!

 

VOLUNTEER


We are resuming our regular volunteer sessions! The first one of the season was held Sunday, April 11, 2021. We'll be at the Gardens working every Sunday, Tuesday, and Friday, 9 – 11 AM through the spring, summer, and fall. All are welcome. Come when you can! Sessions are cancelled if it’s raining, snowing or very windy. We will continue to stay safe by wearing masks and keeping 6 feet apart while we work. Our gardening this year will start out with some spring weeding and tidying, and then we’ll do lots of planting. We look forward to seeing you out in the beds!

We boast a rotating group of about 25 regular volunteers who are committed to enthusiastically helping us build the display gardens.

If you'd like to be added to our email list of volunteers, we'd love to have you! Please contact Garima Fairfax via email at garima@rmbg.org

    

T-shirt sales

Another way you can support the Gardens is by buying a T-shirt with our mountain logo! RMBG shirts in a variety of sizes, colors and styles are currently for sale at Uniquely Lyons at 441 Main St., Lyons, CO (www.uniquelylyons.com/welcome/). T-shirts are also usually available at our events. All proceeds benefit the garden. 




                          




Thanks!

We are incredibly grateful to all of our volunteers and donors for all their years of generosity that make this garden possible. We'd also like to thank to the greater Lyons community for supporting this project from the beginning, cheering on volunteers as they work, appreciating the garden as it grows, and showing up to our fundraisers in droves! 

Specific gifts have also been instrumental in creating the gardens:

The Hunt Family Bench
Mary Hunt generously donated a red sandstone bench for the Prairie Grasslands garden in 2020. The bench is located approximately where her home and her husband Don Hunt's spectacular garden used to be. In honor of his memory and passion for plants, she engraved the bench with his favorite flower, the Iris. We planted Rocky Mountain Iris (Iris missouriensis) around it. 

Lyons Garden Club Bench
The Lyons Garden Club (https://www.lyonsgardenclub.com/), our sister organization in botanically beautifying Lyons, kindly donated a red sandstone bench for the Foothills garden in 2020. 

Western Native Seed
Many thanks to Alex Tonneson at Western Native Seeds (https://www.westernnativeseed.com/) for multiple generous donations of seeds for our garden. The first time we tried to order from them, we included a note about our garden just to use our nonprofit tax-free status. He wrote back asking to hear more about the gardens, and then sent everything we wanted for free! This is a wonderful company widely used by local professionals to source Colorado native seed for grass and meadow mixes, as well as for hard-to-find specific flowers. 


Grants
Some of our funding has come from local nonprofit organizations and grants agencies. These groups have supported the garden with sums that enable larger projects and make a big impact on our budget. 

Lyons Community Foundation
The Lyons Community Foundation has supported our garden in several projects over the years. The organization is devoted to improving the quality of life in Lyons in myriad ways, from arts funding to a weekly food bank. In 2020, we received a grant to cover wages for part-time gardeners in summer 2021, intended to support Lyons community members who had lost work due to the pandemic.

Landscaping with Colorado Native Plants - Montane garden plants
In spring 2021, we received a generous grant from this organization to pay for plants in the Montane garden, through a call for proposals for public gardens seeking funding to plant Colorado native plants (like us!). This organization advocates for the use of Colorado native plants in local gardens and landscaping "to benefit pollinators and songbirds, save water, and restore the beauty and health of nature in the places we live, work and play." The group hosts an annual conference for Colorado gardeners, home and professional, to learn about native plants and native plant gardening.