The Mission Viejo Garden Club participates in projects to promote conservation, formal education in the field of horticulture, and public education through workshops and garden-oriented events.  The club also provides gardening materials and plants through low cost sales to the public. 

Our projects include:

• National Arbor Day: National Arbor Day is the last Friday in April.  Mission Viejo  Garden Club celebrates Arbor Day by ceremonial plantings close to that date in April.  Thus far, our Club has planted California Pepper trees at Rancho Canada Elementary School in Lake Forest, Biloxi Crepe Myrtles and Brisbane Box trees along the Oso Creek Trail, Liquid Amber trees in Montbury Park and Sycamore trees in Applegate Park.  Our club has also honored Mission Viejo City Landscape Architects with a CGCI award for their outstanding landscape design for the new city library.  The presentation was made by the CGCI President and Landscape Chairman and attended by the Mayor and City Council.

• Community Rose Garden: Mission Viejo Garden Club members helped plant the 300 plus roses at Florence Joyner Olympiad Park. Mission Viejo Garden Club members volunteer their time and talent tending the roses, bringing beauty and joy to the residents of Mission Viejo."

• The Garden Therapy Team is privileged to provide floral arrangements to hospice patients through Hospice Care of the West.  Pictures of the arrangements that are created each month by gardening club members are posted on our "Photographs" page.  In addition, we help our members with gardening chores on an as needed basis.
  

• Artes De La Vida: A ten-year community project created by the City of Mission Viejo as an extension of the recently completed “Tierra Nativa – Celebration of the Native Land”.  Mission Viejo ’s commitment to the environment will resume as this new event will blend the Arts and the Environment.  The program will continue to be celebrated as the City’s Earth Day, Arbor Day and Volunteer Connection Day and will also partner with the Imagination Celebration of Orange County.  As in the past, residents will also have the opportunity to assist in landscape renovation through planting.

• National Garden Week:  Every year communities, organizations, and individuals nationwide celebrate gardening during National Garden Week. Gardeners know, and research confirms, that nurturing plants is good for us: attitudes toward health and nutrition improve, kids perform better at school, and community spirit grows. Informational displays and floral arrangements are placed throughout the community to promote the positive attributes of gardening.

• De Portola School Garden:  Members support this elementary school garden with garden related workshops throughout the year.  We also provide plants and gardening supplies for the students on an as-needed basis.

• A Horticulture Scholarship, determined yearly, is awarded to a local student pursuing the study of horticulture.

• Penny Pines: The national forests in California cover some 20 million acres, or about 1/5 of the state. That is equal to an area just slightly larger than the state of South Carolina . Stretching from the Mexican border to Oregon , these forests include a variety of terrain and vegetation types.
  
  It takes thousands of firefighters and hundreds of pieces of specialized equipment working long hours to control these blazing infernos. Fires like these leave total destruction in their wake.
  
  As destructive as fires are, disease and insect infestation destroy seven times more forest vegetation annually than fires because forests pests are scattered and not easily detected, so are harder to control.
  
  In time some land may recover naturally. Penny Pines provides a helping hand. It is a conservation program in which everyone can participate.