The work of the Horticulture Committee is the heart of the Arizona Columbine Garden Club, working to stimulate knowledge and a love of gardening, to promote useful and valuable plants and to conserve those at risk. This committee supports responsible ways to plant, propagate, grow and show by sponsoring lectures, demonstrations, meetings and projects for garden club members and the local gardening community.

ACGC works closely with local growers, nurserymen, landscape designers and architects as well as botanical institutions such as the Desert Botanical Gardens, Boyce Thompson Arboretum, Central Arizona Cactus and Succulent Society, Native Plant Society and others to educate and promote the love of gardening in the very unique and wondrous landscape of the southwestern desert.

The Garden Club of America hosts the annual national Shirley Meneice Horticulture Conference, which takes place at important botanical institutions around the country. Columbine sends an annual delegation of members to participate and learn about horticulture, who return to further educate our membership.

Proposed by the Arizona Columbine Garden Club Horticulture Committee in 2019, the Garden Club of America Montine McDaniel Freeman Medal Special Recognition Award was given in acknowledgement of our state cactus (and flower) the Carnegiea gigantea (saguaro).

In 2020 Desert Botanical Garden was the recipient of the Garden Club of America Helen Payne Luquer Medal, again proposed by the Columbine Hort Committee, in recognition for “exceptional achievement in botanical research, education, exhibition and conservation of desert plants of the world, with special emphasis on the Sonoran Desert.”