The Mountain Garden Club
has been serving Highlands, NC since 1979.
The purpose of the Club shall be to aid in the protection and conservation of our natural resources, encourage civic beauty and
roadside beautification, stimulate the study of the fine art of gardening, and cooperate with other agencies furthering the interest
of horticulture and conservation. As a Not-for-Profit 501c(4), the Club strives to be a good citizen of the community.
What We Do: Three Community Gardens,
Fund Local Scholarships and More!
Each year, our dedicated members dig and pot hundreds of mountain-hardy plants for the club's major fundraiser, an annual plant sale, held on the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend at Highlands' baseball field.
This very popular event generates money to fund college scholarships and vocational scholarships - the majority of which are awarded to Highlands' students, and local conservation and educational projects.
Currently, in 2026, we have six students that are receiving scholarship funds their college education!
The Mountain Garden Club also tends several community gardens, including the Eckerd Living Center at the Highlands-Cashiers Hospital, the Highlands' Elementary School, and the Highlands' Historic Old Jail. We also volunteer our expertise on community projects, enhancing the Highlands' landscape. Locally, we are best known as the dancing ladies in the annual Highlands' Christmas Parade!
Highlands' Historic Old Jail
The Mountain Garden Club recently redesigned the garden surrounding the Old Highlands' Jail on Maple Street. The garden is dedicated to Wiley Sloan, who passed away in March 2020, for his dedication to helping the community. Locals love our resident jailbird J.B. He comes out to enjoy the holidays and special events!
Eckerd Living Center Gardens
Each week during the growing seasons, the Mountain Garden Club lovingly tends to the gardens for the residents at the Eckerd Living Center to enjoy. These beautiful blooms put a smile on the faces of the residents and ELC workers. They love to watch the flowers grow and to come outside to greet our gardeners. We maintain the garden with new plantings, weeding, potting, dead-heading, watering, and all the TLC that goes into growing spectacular Dahlias and plants. In 2026 we are completely redesigning the garden with new native plants.
The raised bed gardens are so beautiful! Ann Maxwell is our Dahlia guru, and her blooms are second to none.
Highlands Elementary School
The completely renovated Butterfly Garden at Highlands Elementary School is spectacular! The many varieties of plants are in full bloom. Take in the beauty and the fruits of labor of love by Mountain Garden Club members, Sara Noah and Ross Gronfield. They removed the old overgrown plants, created a walkway, and garden for the children.
Highlands Christmas Parade 2025
You Make it Feel Like Christmas!
It was a beautiful day for Highland's annual Old Mountain Christmas Parade on December 6th, 2025.
Big thanks go out to Ester Gooch our choreographer, and Midge Rothermel for her lovingly hand-made costumes! This was the 27th year the Mountain Garden Club has danced in this hometown parade.
YES, those are Llamas with our dancers! LOL
2025 Plant Sale
Our annual fundraiser was a success! Our customers were lined up early to get the best selection of plants. Thank you to all those members who were diggers and potters, scribers and cashiers., flag pullers, security, and so much more. BIG Thank you to our buyers! We appreciate your support! See you next year - remember to come early!
2025 Dahlia Festival
This year, two members of our club, Paula Walsh and Donna Rymer, participated in the Bascom's Dahlia Festival. This year was different from years past. All events were on the Bascom campus. The creative challenge for 14 local not-for-profits, was to interpret a piece of art supplied by the museum, with Native flowers and Dahlias as the medium. It was a stunning collections of beautiful flowers by all!
Grooving at the Old Jail
‘JB and the Dahlias’ celebrating ‘Flower Power’ for 2024 Dazzling Dahlia Show!
Led by Ginny Dunwody and Wanda Cooper, this year's festivities included JB and Bodacious dressed in their Flower Power finery! Many of our members helped decorate the old jail, and most brought the blooms from their gardens! Thanks for another great display from MGC!
