These organizations are ones I have personally interacted with, even befriended, whose values align with those of myself/The MagiK Garden. Together, we can help to restore our native habitat and shift the trajectory towards a more harmonious coexistence with nature. They are not arranged in any order of importance, just what looked good on the page.
Jenkins Arboretum & Gardens
Mission: “Jenkins Arboretum & Gardens celebrates the wonder of plants and place as a destination for education, conservation, and community connection.“
Additional statement on plant conservation: “Jenkins serves as living repository for many endangered, rare, and exceptional native plant species. By carefully maintaining these plants within a garden setting, we preserve the genetic material needed to aid with possible future conservation efforts, while also celebrating the diversity of native plant species.”
I owe a lot of gratitude to the board and staff of this arboretum for taking a chance on me and hiring me as a horticulture intern in 2024. I had no prior experience working for a formal garden, beyond my volunteer work at the Twining native plant education garden. I completed an extended full-season internship, working from April through mid-October, and continue to volunteer there on occasion.
Jenkins Arboretum & Gardens is heavily focused on gardening and promoting native plants by showing how they can be utilized in a semi-formal garden. They feature many garden designs, including woodlands, pond habitat, and sunny, well-drained sites. Their gardens, thanks to free admission, serve as inspiration to new and experienced native gardeners alike.
Journeywork
“We work in neighborhoods, schools, and congregations to give people the tools to enhance the ecological value of their landscapes. We grow and source plants, provide design guidance, and engage volunteers to help people improve the habitats they steward. We foster community dialogue, education, skill-building & sharing through workshops, consultations, and client work. We meet people where they are as we seek to revitalize the land, one lawn at a time.”
Mission: “To restore the land together, joyfully.“
I first met Paige Menton as a fellow member of Ambler-Keystone Farm & Garden (a branch of the Woman’s National Farm & Garden Association). We share similar values about the importance of ecology and building habitat and have helped each other out with each other’s passion projects. Not only do they offer a Pollinator Palooza native gardening kit, complete with proposed installation layout, in the winter months, Paige and her group of volunteers help to pull invasives from public spaces (as well as smaller properties with a donation to the org).
Ambler-Keystone Farm & Garden
The mission of this nonprofit association shall be, as stated in the Articles of Incorporation, “to enable our members to cooperate in furthering agricultural and horticultural interest through membership in divisions and branches throughout the United States in order:
· To operate solely for benevolent, charitable and educational purposes;
· To aid in the protection and conservation of natural resources, to protect civic beauty and to encourage an appreciation of country life;
· To cooperate with federal and state agencies in efforts to improve conditions affecting home and community life;
· To further conservation, agricultural and horticultural education and related fields of study through scholarships and educational awards;
· To furnish members with opportunities for the marketing of farm and garden products and handiwork;
· To provide for the exchange of members’ ideas and members’ education by means of the official publication;
· To cooperate with other national and international organizations in the furtherance of these aims and purposes.
I’ve been a member of Ambler-Keystone Farm & Garden since 2023, after Cindy Nuss (designer of the native demonstration garden at Twining Valley Park and personal mentor) encouraged me to join. “It’s not like other garden groups. We’re very heavily focused on promoting native gardening.” I’ve since assisted, then led the committee for their annual native plant sale, participated in the late-fall seed cleaning at the Upper Dublin library, and helped out with the FALLing In Love With Natives garden tour (last year tabling a pop-up native plant sale at one of the stops). Nowadays, I recommend that anyone who lives locally who is interested in joining a native gardening club consider joining ours. There are many prominent members in our org, including the well-known Jenny Rose Carey (who isn’t a strictly native gardener, but who has in recent years began adding more native plants to her famous Northview Gardens) as well as Paige Menton (President and founder of Journeywork, also on this page), and many other gardening-related businesses (like myself with my nursery). The group is not exclusive to women – all genders are welcome, and we do have a few male members in our branch.
Community Canopy Project
Mission: “The Community Canopy Project is a non-profit organization focused on ecological restoration in lower Montgomery County, PA. With the help of our volunteers, we remove invasive plants, restore native species, and steward our parks and remaining natural areas. We aim to educate, build community, and inspire ecological literacy and advocacy.”
I first met Andrew Conboy on iNaturalist a few years ago, when he consistently helped me with my tree identifications. In doing so, he indirectly taught me how to get better at identifying them myself. Then it turned out he lives just around the corner from me (Update 2026, he now lives in south Philly, but his parents still live nearby). We connected on our shared passion for identifying, reporting and eliminating invasive species and gardening with native plants, and logging everything on iNaturalist in general. It’s rare to find someone so dedicated to cleaning up and restoring our natural spaces.
Greenwalk
“Greenwalk LLC designs and manufactures high quality paver bricks in America. We take pride in providing a product that improves your property and the planet. Our patented TetraPave® bricks are the only hexagonally shaped permeable paver available.”
TetraPave® pavers are hand poured in small batches right here in southeastern Pennsylvania. The way this company came about was when Dakota Bolt (CEO, Co-founder) and his friends were driving through the mountains, lamenting that they have to cut down these forests to pave and make roads. This led to a conversation about permeable driveways filled with plants as opposed to the paved, impermeable surfaces, followed by “how can we make that happen?” We are currently collaborating to test which native plants would work well with foot traffic and, eventually, car traffic and parking.