You would not know by talking to him, but Tom Renkey did not grow up gardening as a hobby, nor did he have any background in horticulture before beginning to volunteer at Tyler Arboretum. However, the sheer joy, energy and pride he emanates when describing his time working with the Horticulture and Land Stewardship Department is undeniable.
Though Tom has always loved the outdoors, his background is in manufacturing, supply chain and management in the corporate world. When he began phasing out of his last job doing consulting for a small pharmaceutical company, he started contemplating what to do next. He saw that Tyler was looking for volunteers and he lived in the area, so he sent in his information and was given a list of possible options for volunteering – one of which was horticulture.
In November of 2022, he started volunteering in that department and it did not take long for him to love the work. The staff was welcoming, the volunteers were terrific, and the options and flexibility were just what he was looking for. Since 2022, he has not let up on his many weekly hours of volunteering with the Horticulture department. In fact, last year he rang up 397 hours of volunteering!
‘A Nice Place to Work’
He credits the well-run organization of Tyler for making it such a special place to volunteer, with the Horticulture team fostering a real sense of unity and comradery. All of the volunteers in that department are healthy, love being outside and love the vigor of the work. Everyone is enthusiastic and fine with being out in all different types of weather all year long. “People just come out and enjoy it,” he says. The volunteers hail from all kinds of backgrounds and each volunteer brings a different skill set and knowledge base that makes the work enjoyable. “The reality is the environment that has been created is such that it is such a flexible and nice place to work,” he beams.
Most of his volunteer time has been spent in the Wister Rhododendron Garden because he just really enjoys it there. However, he has had the opportunity to do lots of different things as there are many tasks he has discovered he likes – weeding, planting, mulching, pulling out invasives, to name a few. Tom has also learned a tremendous amount from each gardener he has worked with over the years. Each gardener taught him something that he did not know before. As with the volunteers, each gardener brought a different style, knowledge and personality, and each one has been equally a joy to work with.
Volunteer Tom Renkey in action removing Oriental Bittersweet from the grounds of Tyler Arboretum in March 2025.
Tom also very much appreciates the level of safety consciousness at Tyler in general, but specifically in the Horticulture department. There is a mindset at Tyler that everyone must leave for the day in perfect health and condition. The gardeners are watching out for the volunteers. “That whole mindset, it comes from the organization,” he says.
Managing the Details for Plant Sale
But not only does Tom volunteer multiple days every week in the Horticulture and Land Stewardship Department – he also volunteers at Tyler Arboretum’s Annual Plant Sale, and for the past two years, he has helped with a database containing information related to the sale. He and a few others enter information about new trees, shrubs, perennials, etc. for the plant sale each year; and then another volunteer takes that information and creates the placards containing relevant information about each plant.
When the plants are delivered for the plant sale, Tom helps to make sure that what was ordered is what was received, and he and the other volunteers create the thousands of labels for the plants. At last year’s plant sale, there were more than 850 different kinds of plants, and every plant (over 10,000) got a label. He loves the data system and is proud of how it works, explaining that the data is so critical because the people who come to the plant sale are looking for very specific information about the genus and species of a plant and do not want to see misspellings or misinformation. He enjoys being part of this process and understanding the mechanics and logistics of the data system.
‘A Real Sense of Comradery’
Ultimately, he proclaims, the work in the Horticulture department “just fits with me.” He likes that the volunteers are charged with tasks for which they can see the fruits of their work. Volunteers in the Horticulture and Land Stewardship Department “enjoy that we are just here. That’s what makes it enjoyable.”
He also notes that there is a lot of work that goes in to managing the complex organization of Tyler Arboretum, and because many of the volunteers in Horticulture have worked in large organizations, they appreciate that. There is “a real sense of this comradery among the hort folks.”
