Earlier this year, we put the word out that the Conservancy was seeking Horticulture Volunteers to work alongside our team of horticultural experts. The number of interested community members who responded was staggering. The park relies on contributions from these committed individuals to help maintain the beautiful gardens you experience throughout the year and their efforts help make all the difference.

Since the individual Horticulture Volunteer program began in April 2021, volunteers have recorded over 800 hours of service working on everything from weeding & litter removal to planting thousands of landscape plugs & pruning large, woody shrubs. We’ve been fortunate enough to blend a new cohort with some of the program’s inaugural members to make a formidable and experienced volunteer gardening team. These last 3 months alone, we’ve banked 43 hours with this fantastic group of people working in support of the park you know and love. Get to know a little bit about them and what motivates them to volunteer with the horticulture team! 

Megan Cline

I’ve been volunteering with MSP on and off for three years now! I started gardening during the pandemic. 

I was staying with my parents and needed a project – and an oasis, so I completely redesigned their backyard landscaping. After returning to New York, I wanted to continue exploring my newfound hobby and that’s how I found the volunteer program! 

Gardening is my favorite hobby, but I’m an artist with a drawing practice who also really loves to bake. I love aquatic plants! Nelumbo nucifera, Indian lotus, is a favorite. Just last month, I was able to join MSPC’s horticulture team for a visit to Wave Hill Botanical Garden, where we got to speak to their aquatic gardening team and tour the grounds! 

Deborah Starr

This is my third year volunteering at Madison Square Park. I started volunteering during Covid as I was unable to leave the city regularly and definitely felt “nature deprived.”

 I appreciate all plants, and especially love flowers. I have to have them wherever I live, inside and outside as much as possible! I never met a flower I didn’t like. It’s hard to choose a favorite…but I grew up with lilacs and my daughter adores peonies.

 A fun fact about myself is interestingly enough, just before Covid, we moved from Madison Green (the building right across the street from the park) where we had lived for four years, and I had not known one could volunteer! 

Lynn Stefanelli

I started volunteering in May, spurred on by my excitement for bulb planting this fall! I walk through the park everyday with my pup, Sadie. I’m a neighbor of the park, I appreciate it, and it’s become my backyard! 

When I realized that MSPC was not a city-funded park, but a privately funded park, I wanted to give back to the community in which I live. I wanted to volunteer and participate in my own backyard! It’s all about investment in the future and paying it forward. I can now walk around the park and acknowledge that an area looks even more beautiful because of my hard work with the horticulture team. 

My favorite plant is hydrangea, especially the ones that have pink and blue flowers blooming on the same shrub! Right now, my favorite is the hibiscus blooming in the park! There is always something new to appreciate, it is so magical and uplifting. 

A fun fact about myself is that I am known as the “Button Lady” around the park! In my efforts to encourage dog owners to clean up after their dogs, I created fun and humorous buttons that promote poop-free parks and sidewalks in NYC. I noticed that some owners would leave or not notice poop left by their dogs and I wanted to inspire change, for the cleanliness and consideration of other park goers and park staff. I’ve seen that through kindness, a smile, and positivity, we can inspire others to clean up after their pets. And we’ve started a trend! All throughout the park, patrons and both MSPC and Shake Shack staff wear my buttons in support of this paws-itive movement for poop-free parks! Check out my instagram @PoopFreeParks to see how others are inspiring change, one person at a time.