Leila Arboretum Society

Environment
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Leila Arboretum Society

Environmental Stewardship: Air and land quality, Conservation – land use
928 W Michigan Ave, Battle Creek, MI 49037
Phone (269) 969 - 0270
I'm Interested Visit Website Volunteer Page
Our mission

To preserve and enhance Leila Arboretum for all to appreciate horticulture and the arts in a natural environment.
Opportunities

Outdoor Gardeners

Leila Arboretum Society has a great many opportunities for people to volunteer their time gardening outdoors. Come and help the Society and your community by coming out and joining friends and neighbors in helping to make this area a place of lush and lustrous beauty! Here are our main opportunities. You do not have to be a Master Gardener to volunteer for LAS!
  • Occasional, Monthly
  • Teens, 55+, Adults
  • Individuals
  • Physical, Outdoor
  • On-site
  • Weekdays, Weekends

Administrative Duties

Filing, calling, assembling bulk mail – Most of the mailings that go out through LAS for the Volunteer and Education Departments are made possible by volunteer efforts. The tasks required are inserting, folding, labeling, sealing and organizing these mailings so we can get them out on a timely basis. This task is usually done in a team effort.
  • Occasional
  • Teens, 55+, Adults
  • Individuals, Groups (2-10)
  • Office work, Indoor
  • None
  • Weekdays, Weekends

Business District Plantings

Communities seem more vibrant when their business districts come alive with plantings of annuals, bulbs and trees. Note: the container plantings that you see in the downtown area are planted and maintained by Leila Arboretum.
  • Occasional
  • Teens, 55+, Adults
  • Individuals, Groups (2-10), Groups (10+)
  • Physical, Outdoor
  • None, On-site
  • Weekdays, Weekends

Kaleidoscope Garden

Gardeners will always be needed to help take care of an acre of plantings in the LAS Kaleidoscope Garden. This is a wonderful garden containing many small gardens of different themes.
  • Occasional, Monthly
  • Teens, 55+, Adults
  • Individuals
  • Physical, Outdoor
  • On-site
  • Weekdays, Weekends

Special Skills Volunteers

Like many non-profits, Leila doesn’t have the funding to hire out some of the special tasks that we need done around here. It’s always great to have volunteers who have skills that they are willing to contribute such as carpentry, electrical, mechanical and artistic skills.
  • One-time, Occasional
  • 55+, Adults
  • Individuals, Corporate Teams
  • Indoor, Outdoor
  • Skilled
  • Weekdays, Weekends

Greenhouse Gardeners

The LAS Greenhouse offers many opportunities for learning also. Greenhouse gardening is different than gardening outdoors. Greenhouse gardeners learn the fine points of growing plants from seed in a controlled environment, grafting, transplanting, pruning at important intervals, and insect control. The LAS Greenhouse Gardeners go into a high production phase starting in mid-January to begin producing plants for the Arboretum, the Kaleidoscope Garden, various community locations and the Annual Plant Sale held in early May.
  • Occasional, Weekly, Monthly
  • Teens, 55+, Adults
  • Individuals
  • Physical, Indoor, Outdoor
  • Formal
  • Weekdays, Weekends

Specialty Gardens

Throughout the community, there are wonderful examples of different kinds of gardens for those who wish to specialize. There are rose gardens, rock gardens, butterfly gardens, gardens of just annuals, native wild flowers, perennial gardens, Japanese gardens etc.
  • Occasional, Monthly
  • Teens, 55+, Adults
  • Individuals
  • Physical, Outdoor
  • On-site, Formal
  • Weekdays, Weekends

Garden and Greenhouse Guides

One of the newest volunteer assignments at LAS. Since the Kaleidoscope Garden opening in June of 2003, we have depended on trained volunteers to take people on tours around the Kaleidoscope Garden and do hands-on-activities with children. In this children’s learning garden, we show kids how plants effect their everyday lives. There are so many fun and creative ways of educating children. We always concentrate on learning through fun!
  • Weekly, Monthly
  • Teens, 55+, Adults
  • Individuals
  • Outdoor
  • Formal
  • Weekdays, Weekends
How you help

With a small staff, we are very dependent on the skill and goodwill of our volunteers in making community beautification and environmental education a reality in Battle Creek! We have all kinds of jobs at LAS! Together there are so many things we can accomplish!
About us

The Leila Arboretum dates back to 1922 when Leila Post Montgomery, widow of cereal magnate C.W. Post, donated 72 acres of land to the city of Battle Creek that had formerly been the site of the Battle Creek Country Club. She envisioned a center for culture amid the beauty of nature. In the autumn of 1981, determined to reclaim the arboretum’s former beauty from overgrown brush, a group of citizens with a vision for what could be formed Leila Arboretum Society (LAS). With membership and volunteers numbering in the hundreds, the arboretum has been reborn and the love for natural spaces and gardening places has translated into friendships, a downtown that has drawn national attention, neighborhood landscaping projects, city gateway plantings, classes that lead to master gardener certification and sheer enjoyment!