Garden Mission: To promote water conservation in the California Central Valley landscape through excellent gardens, exhibits and programs that educate and inspire the public.
As another year ends, we look forward to a year of exciting activities in 2025! The past two decades have brought many wonderful changes to the garden like the pavilion, sensory garden, children’s garden, home demonstration area, cactus garden and many, many more! It’s amazing what a wonderful group of talented, dedicated, and hardworking volunteers in our community has done and continue to do each year, day after day!
As many of you already know, we’ve partnered with Arthur Dyson, award winning and nationally renowned architect to design our new Visitor Center. This new building will provide a year-round space for community activities and potential rental income, as well as a venue to enable us to enhance and expand educational opportunities and exhibits. Construction is well underway, and progress each day has been exciting to watch. The center’s unique architectural design has delighted visitors who anxioulsy await the grand opening before the end of 2025.
As we embark on this new season of opportunity for our garden and approach the beginning of a wonderful new year, we need your help more than ever. We welcome your in-kind and monetary donations to complete the visitor center project, including the building and interior components,new plantings and pathways; additional parking to the north, an enlarged trash receptical area in the park, and a myriad of other expenses that always seem to surface with a new build. All donations will be greatly appreciated as we strive to provide a place in our community for families and friends to enjoy throughout the many years to come.
The garden is maintained 100% by volunteers! All efforts are focused on ensuring a wonderful experience at the garden for everyone from first-time visitors to long-term members and volunteers. The garden is a place where our community grows strong, and we are taking steps to strengthen our roots and cultivate a beautiful water-wise garden.
Of course, all would not be possible without the support of our community, which is sincerely appreciated. Thank you for helping the Clovis Botanical Garden thrive! We are looking forward to another momentous year ahead.
Welcome to Our New Members
- Shirley Lai
- Slawomir Rutkowski
- Bret Hedrick
- Ying Lu
- Heidi Cobb
- Monteen Brown
- Mark Lubetski
- Amy Toms
Members of CBG receive a membership card, a quarterly newsletter, a digital subscription to Better Homes & Gardens, and free admission to many public gardens in California and around the country through the American Horticulture Association Reciprocal Admissions Program.
See all gardens around the nation and abroad that provide reciprocal admission.
Volunteers
GARDEN MAINTENANCE VOLUNTEERS NEEDED! Spring will be here before you know it offering a wonderful opportunity for working in the garden , and CBG has LOTS of volunteer gardening opportunities! Many trees, bushes and plants will herald in the new season with new leaves and blossom buds. Want to learn more about which plants do the best, thrive locally, and use less water? Learn on the job! You are invited to join the gardening crews on Thursdays, Fridays and/or Saturdays in the morning from 9 AM to noon. We weed and trim in the morning to keep the garden looking at its absolute best. Interested individuals are encouraged to become part of the team!
Sample Activities of the Garden Maintenance Crews
Each week garden crew supervisors generate an informal short report on work activities. The samples below, reports from Ree and Perry Coy on December 19th, will give you an idea of what volunteers do!
Ree:
Yesterday may have been foggy & a bit dreary, but the CBG Thurs Crew working in the Garden was the exact opposite: bright and energetic!! Eleven (11!) volunteers (Elida, Kitty, Lorie, Paula, Tammera, Vicki, Vickie, Rodger, Perry, Ree & Jeff) were at the Garden. Jeff serenaded us on the Swirl despite competing construction noises of welding & metal pounding!! Kitty & Elida arrived first and cleaned out weeds at the Northernmost part of the Frontscape. Then joined the rest of the gals as they spruced up the For Sale Nursery Stock shelves, wagoned junk to the dumpster in the north parking area from the proposed new Nursery & Service Area and then proceeded to weed, etc. in the Ornamental Grass Garden and Chilean/So. African Garden. Ree placed the last of our Christmas books in the Little Free Library! Kitty brought limes & The Coys brought Fuyus Persimmons & tangerines to share; Elida donated more books for the LFL….A most productive day!!….
Perry:
Asked Sid, the VC construction manager, if it was ok to put trash in their dumpster. He said “sure,” so Rodger & I disposed of three railroad ties, an old drinking fountain, many broken pop-ups, and a lot of miscellaneous junk. The area by the shed looks a LOT better: an excellent cleanup effort!!
Fourth Quarter Garden Activities
- Construction of the new Visitor Center is progressing with full steam ahead! Every day there are new features to discover. Temporary fencing around the construction site within the garden enables the garden to be open most days throughout the process.
- On October 29th, garden volunteers gathered at Bobby Salazar’s in Old Town Clovis to honor this year’s Volunteer-of-the-Year – Lorie Hutzler. Lorie, a long-time volunteer on the Thursday Garden Crew, has expanded her leadership abilities to supervise a Friday crew this year. Lorie “never saw a weed she didn’t want to pull!” She demonstrates a cheerful outlook to help in any way needed as a friend to all, and her dedication is genuinely appreciated! Congratulations, Lorie!
- Garden crew volunteers have been busy this quarter as well, raking, weeding, and preparing for Spring.
- The Ornamental Grass area has a new bench, with the following dedication plaque:
- Anne Clemons, For her vision and perseverance
- Donors: Susan & Dad Stiltz
- Board Member, Pat Wynne, is the garden’s representative attending a “Community Resources Committee” at the Clovis Veterans Memorial District. Members share events in a collaborative spirit to support one another. This is a wonderful opportunity to share garden events and increase support for the garden.
Words from Our Visitors
Garden visitors are encouraged to sign a guest registry and take the opportunity to comment. All entries are greatly appreciated and reviewed carefully to provide the community with a pleasant, valued experience. A few of the comments this quarter are as follows:
“Lovely! Thank you – I’m a horticulturalist and wow! I went through it twice! Interesting plants, welltended and well labeled. I wish I lived closer so I could visit more!
R. P from Alameda, CA
“Beautiful. We love walking through and feeling the nature. Thank You!
R. U. from Fresno, CA
“The plants are obviously beautiful, but the architecture is so so so good.”
D. W. from Lafayette, IN
So happy to see this resource for your community!
J. D. from Providence, RI
Fourth Quarter 2024 Activities: Clovis Botanical Garden
Volunteer-of-the-Year – LORIE HUTZLER
The Vision Unfolds: Progress on the New Visitor Center!
October
November
December
Tips for the Central Valley Gardener: Winter Garden Advice
by Elinor Teaque
Here in the Central Valley, winter ends in mid to late January when our soil temperatures warm to 50 degrees or higher. Weed seeds germinate quickly with the rise in soil temperatures. In past years, home gardeners regularly used glyphosate herbicides like Roundup to kill weeds in planting beds and preemergent herbicides to control lawn weeds in late winter. However, current environmental and health concerns, as well as the elimination of water-thirsty lawns, have really reduced the use of chemical herbicides in home gardens. Today we are learning about safer non-chemical ways to control weeds in planting beds, lawns, and in the mulches, decomposed granite, rocks, and gravel that have replaced lawns.
The first and most important step in non-chemical weed control is to kill the weeds when they first appear, when they are tiny, before they set seed, and their roots become invasive. We have two weed seasons here in the Central Valley. The most prevalent cool- season falls/spring weeds whose seeds germinate when temperatures are lower are annual blue grass and the highly invasive yellow wood sorrel or yellow oxalis. The seedlings of warm- season weeds like spurges and crabgrasses appear in spring with the first warm spells.
A sharp-bladed wiggle-hoe is the best weapon to kill weed seedlings. Use it weekly in the spring to cut off and dig out weed seedlings as soon as you spot them.
The next step in weed control is to deprive weeds of water. Replacing overhead sprinklers with drip emitters that direct water only to the root systems of preferred plants is crucial.
Mulches act as barriers to sunlight and prevent weed seeds from germinating. Maintain a three-to four inch layer of organic material in planting beds throughout our long growing season. Weed barrier cloths and cardboard layered under mulches work to prevent seed germination but interfere with oxygen exchange in the soil which reduces the population and effectiveness of beneficial micro-organisms
A Message From President, Anne Clemons
Progress on the visitor center is very easy to see now that walls and roofing are underway.
Gardens change with time and CBG is no exception. Now the trees are grown and providing much needed shade for visitors. The original sun-loving plants look very unhappy, and some have given up all together. The new visitor center requires plantings to complement the unique style. Some existing trees had to be removed.
To accommodate these changes some pathways will be rerouted, plants that are more shade tolerant installed. Trees that were removed will be replanted in a more suitable area. The original kiosk used for volunteers will be removed. A new volunteer kiosk will be placed in the renovated maintenance area which will have a new shed for tools and space for a fenced nursery.
Have a happy New Year and please join us for the ribbon cutting! No, I don’t know the day yet but believe me we will let you know.
Download Statement of Financial Position
Board Members
- Anne Clemons, President
- Andrea Reed, Treasurer
- Perry Coy
- Leticia Ramirez
- Patricia Wynne, Vice President
- Carole Bence, Secretary
- John Pape
- Rodger Pachelbel
Advisory Committee
- Karin Chao Bushoven
- Dwight Kroll
- John Bushoven, Ph.D.
Garden Consultant
- John Pape
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