Celebrating the volunteers who help the Gardens thrive

Formal volunteer programs at Royal Botanic Garden Sydney began in 1981 with the formation of the volunteer guides, a group that continues to welcome and educate visitors to the gardens every day. A year later, volunteers founded the Foundation and Friends of the Botanic Gardens, creating a community that has supported staff, raised vital funds, and helped protect our precious plant collections for more than four decades.

Today, over 550 volunteers contribute their time, skills and enthusiasm across the Botanic Gardens of Sydney. Over the past year alone, they have given 47,000 hours of service, an in‑kind contribution valued at more than $2.1 million.

Volunteers’ work spans 26 programs across Science, Education, Conservation, Horticulture, Fundraising and Events. They care for endangered orchids, test the viability of priceless seed collections, mount herbarium specimens that will inform research for centuries, grow plants for public sales, curate exhibitions, support events, clean garden signage, and lead tours across all three gardens.

This Volunteer Week, we highlight just a few of the extraordinary individuals whose dedication enriches our organisation every day.

For the last 12 years, Christina has been a volunteer guide at Royal Botanic Garden Sydney, helping visitors discover the stories behind the plants and landscapes around them. Originally from Germany, Christina moved to Sydney 15 years ago, and the Gardens were one of the first places she visited. A chance conversation with a passionate volunteer guide at the Visitor Centre inspired her to sign up to volunteer herself, a decision that has shaped her connection to the Gardens ever since.

Christina works full time and has continued guiding throughout multiple full‑time jobs, supported by the flexibility of her workplaces and the Garden’s strong volunteering culture. She uses her work-supported volunteer hours to take weekday shifts over the year, and often leads tours on weekends too. “It’s one of the best places to be,” she said. “Sharing knowledge here brings me joy.”

Her favourite stop on her tour is often the moment where visitors pause between the vibrant yellow gingko tree and the famous Wollemi Pine to consider these historic plants. “You’re talking about ancient forests… I imagine the Wollemi and the ginkgo exchanging life tips.”

She loves seeing visitors light up with curiosity. 

“If I get that ‘wow’ look, I know I’ve achieved my goal.” 

 

Christina now also helps train new guides and values the supportive, family‑like culture of the volunteer program.

For more than 20 years, Evelyn has been a dedicated volunteer in the Daniel Solander Library at the Royal Botanic Garden Sydney. When he retired in 2003, he applied to volunteer with one request: that the work needed to be something he could do from his wheelchair. Expecting to help with books, he instead found himself surrounded by boxes and boxes of uncatalogued photographs. 

Two decades later, he has digitised and catalogued over 12,000 historical images.

Evelyn has transformed a scattered archive into an accessible resource used across Botanic Gardens of Sydney. The collection spans more than a century, from 1890s glass plate negatives to early field‑trip photographs. Some images reveal landscapes long lost. 

“There are photographs of giant eucalypts with tiny little people at the bottom,” Evelyn said. “It’s striking to see what Australian forests were like before they were cut down.”

Many discoveries have come from unexpected places, including photos tucked inside specimen boxes, found when the herbarium collection moved to Mount Annan from the Sydney site in 2022. These photos and the field notes scribbled on the backs are now digitally preserved thanks to Evelyn’s meticulous work.

“You wouldn’t have a clue what’s in some of the boxes we find: but now we've created an index, people can access these incredible historic photos of the Gardens."

 

The Daniel Solander Library was established in 1852 and is Australia's oldest botanical research library. Its world-class collections contain over 250,000 items, including books, journals, botanical illustrations, historic photographs, manuscripts, maps, archives, archaeological artefacts, and memorabilia. 

Elizabeth also volunteers in the library - like Evelyn, her work covers much more than books. She started on April Fools Day 2008, but her work is no joke: close to two decades later, her contributions remain invaluable. Initially brought in to help organise materials, she began by working with the library’s map collection, carefully tidying, cataloguing, and bringing order to these important resources. 

Once that project was complete, colleagues encouraged her to expand her focus to the art collection, where she took on the challenge of sorting and digitising artworks. 

Since then, Elizabeth has played a key role in digitising paintings and other pieces, helping to preserve and make accessible the library’s rich and varied holdings. Her deep knowledge of the artworks also led to her authoring a chapter on the art collection for the Gardens’ 2016 bicentenary book.

For the past year Marlon has volunteered regularly in the nursery at Royal Botanic Garden Sydney, supporting the care of the carnivorous plant collection. His involvement began through the Australasian Carnivorous Plant Society, where he met horticulturist Juan Lucas (pictured). After offering advice on species Juan was less familiar with, Marlon found himself returning. “The work was so enjoyable that I ended up signing on as a volunteer,” he said.

Volunteering provides a welcome balance to Marlon’s freelance illustration work, which often means long hours indoors. Time in the nursery and tending to the carnivorous and aquatic plants gives him fresh air, sunlight and a grounding connection to nature.

“You’ll never know where volunteering will take you. It has been fulfilling in ways I can hardly put into words."

 

Marlon’s passion for plants began after moving to Sydney from the Philippines, when caring for a small Venus flytrap plant became an emotional anchor during a difficult time. "Getting to see its growth day-by-day gave me something to look forward to every day." he said. "Now, even though these problems aren’t entirely gone, I can’t deny the joy that comes over me when I look out on my balcony and see the fruits of my labour in the form of beautiful, vigorous Sarracenia and Nepenthes."

Today Marlon helps care for these plants at the Gardens and at home, and shares his knowledge widely. Volunteering, he says, has opened unexpected doors, from managing a seed bank to giving talks and learning new plant groups.