Volunteer
Wild Ones Garden Tour June 13, 2026
We are looking for a few volunteers to join a committee to help organize a Wild Ones Garden Tour for 2026. If you are interested in this opportunity or would like more information please contact Ann Witherington or Angela Myers or send an email to [email protected].
City Nature Challenge
Make observations of wild plants, animals, and fungi anywhere in Fayette County. Your observations will contribute to one of the largest community science events in the world to better understand nature that lives in and around urban areas. More info to come.
Floracliff Nature Sanctuary https://www.floracliff.org
Floracliff volunteers help accomplish restoration goals; share the biodiversity, natural history, and cultural history of the sanctuary; participate in local and global community science projects; maintain trails, facilities, and infrastructure; and so much more. Our dedicated volunteers come to know the unique features of the sanctuary through all seasons.
Kentucky Master Naturalist Volunteer Program (next class 2026) https://naturalist.ca.uky.edu/
Fayette County Master Gardener Program https://fayette.ca.uky.edu/horticulture
Lexington Parks and Recreation https://www.lexingtonky.gov/parks-recreation-volunteers.
Offers many volunteer opportunities, short-term and long-term, ranging from removing invasives, plantings, citizen science efforts, teaching classes in our community centers, and much more!
Contact Callie Dickman at [email protected] if interested in arranging volunteer work!
Plant Sources and Landscape Services
Fields To Forest Nursey specializes in growing native trees in manageable containers.
Ironweed Nursery grows wildflowers and forbs but also offers a number of woody plants.
Tina’s PLANTSNSUCH grows a variety of native perennials, with a small selection of grasses, vines and shrubs. Contact Tina Elliott [email protected]
Dropseed Nursery carries plants of local genotype from Kentucky, southern Indiana, and southern Ohio.
Michler’s Gardens and Greenhouses carries many plants native to Kentucky and the US.
Oakland Farm Trees specializes in container-grown native trees.
Leafhopper Landscaping LLC Owner Dale Epperson provides landscape services.
EcoGro Owner Russ Turpin provides landscape and water quality services.
Springhouse Gardens owner Richard Weber sells plants and provides landscape services.
EARTHeim Landscape Design Owner Katrina Kelly provides landscape services and sells plants.
Katrina produced Lexington’s Native Garden Design template that helps homeowners replace traditional lawn with native plantings that thrive in the region’s alkaline soils, humid subtropical climate, and patchwork of sun and shade conditions. This plan features prairie and woodland-edge plants built to thrive in Kentucky’s soils. Download the free design: nativegardendesigns.wildones.org/lexington-ky/
Virtual Plant Exchange
In addition to our in person plant exchange each May, we host an online plant exchange which functions year round. Wild Ones members and non-members can participate, but every participant must be approved by a group administrator.
To become a participant, you need to sign up at https://groups.io/g/lexwildones. Scroll down to “Group Email Addresses” and click on “Subscribe”. Follow instructions and wait for our approval. Once approved, you will have to create a password and then you can post the plants you want to give away as well as any plants you are looking for. When you offer or request something, please put your plant(s) in the subject line, and say whether this is a plant offer or a request. To respond to a post, you directly contact the person who made the offer or the request and arrange for pick-up or delivery.
To participate in the exchange, you don’t have to offer a plant to the group for every plant you receive. Experience tells us that long-time native plant gardeners have lots of plants to give and new ones are greatly in need of plants. So, we hope that group members will offer plants generously and receive them gratefully according to their ability and need.
This group functions as a Listserve, which means you potentially receive all the emails posted to the group. But in “Settings”, you can arrange how, when or whether you want to receive these emails with plant offerings or requests: you can receive an email every time someone makes a post, or emails can be bundled in groups of twelve, or you can receive them every morning, or not at all. You can also unsubscribe, of course.