Imagine you’re the manager of a 110 acre garden. It’s a public garden, and visitors come year-round to view the plant collection. Your staff is small, far too few to plant, weed, prune, and maintain the garden. The prospect keeps you up at night, wondering where you will get the help needed to keep the garden beautiful and thriving. Your thoughts are drawn to the fairy tale of the shoemaker’s elves, who showed up at night to magically turn the shoemaker’s cut leather into beautiful shoes. If only…
Secrest Arboretum has its own version of the storybook elves—the volunteer Tuesday/Wednesday Crew that shows up each Tuesday and Wednesday morning from mid-March through November to work in the cultivated garden spaces. The Crew meets near the tool shed to gather tools and supplies and get their marching orders. Secrest Operations Manager, Paul Snyder, then directs them to the areas they’ll focus on for the day. As they proceed to the work site, Paul points out what’s exciting, new, or surprising along the way, and occasionally the group will forgo the morning’s work for a personal tour of areas of interest—education is a much-appreciated perk when you are a member of the Crew. Paul and Secrest staff members, Matt and Alex, circulate during the work hours to answer questions and further direct the work.
After years of informal volunteer help, the Tuesday/Wednesday Crew was organized in 2015, and has been a steady presence since. Paul notes that the difference in the health and beauty of the arboretum before and after its inception “is like night and day”. Crew members pick Tuesday or Wednesday and then tend to become a regular on that day. The Tuesday/Wednesday Crew contributed more than 900 work hours in 2025. Multiply that times the hourly rate of experienced landscaping help and we’re talking about some serious coin!
The group is made up almost exclusively of Secrest Master Gardeners, who, because of their training, bring a level of expertise that requires only light supervision. Most crew members join the group for the opportunity to give back to a place they appreciate or to accumulate volunteer hours for their Master Gardener credential, but the pleasure of working on the beautiful Secrest grounds brings them back week after week. Long-time Crew member, Lori Everett, explains I have learned about the many unique characteristics of plants only because of an often and regular opportunity for observation. It is a rich experience, with opportunities to learn plant ID, pruning, plant care “best practices”, comparisons of species and cultivars, approaches to pest and disease control, and a myriad of others. Then there are the friendships made along the way—priceless!
Secrest Arboretum is a gem made all the more valuable by its high-quality plant collection, beautiful grounds, knowledgeable staff, welcoming spaces, and the volunteers that are key to its success.
All are welcome to join the Tuesday/Wednesday crew. Contact Paul Snyder at Snyder.1062@osu.edu for information.
–Karen Edgington, Master Gardener Volunteer