The Stone Mountain Propagation Garden is maintained/operated by about 20 volunteers. Many of us are novices who are anxious to learn more. Our mentors of the garden are Karen McCaustland and Elaine Nash. Stone Mountain Propagation Project (SMPP) has concentrated the most effort on seed propagation rather than vegetative propagation.

Seeds are collected throughout year; some from Stone Mtn. Park, with permission, from stock plants furnished by the GNPS rescue program, or GNPS member gardens and others from hikes around the southeast. The first hurdle in propagating seed is making sure fertile, ripe seed is collected, cleaned and stored to maintain viability. Some need a rest period after collecting, others need to be collected in their green stage before birds find them. The collected seed is stored in coin envelopes marked with date, species and location found. We share our stash in the fall, at which point some seeds go into a refrigerator for stratification over the winter months and others might be sown and set into a greenhouse for the winter. Seeds are sent home with some volunteers along with plug trays and planting media. As the new year warms up, we sow different seeds in a soilless mix, moisten and cover with a plastic bag. It takes from only 6 months to almost 2 years to produce a handsome plant so there are several stages during the growing process when volunteers have access to surplus plants for their own yards or projects. The growing plants receive our care and lots of watering throughout a majority of the year.

The garden has 2 - 250 gallon and one 3,000 gallon rain collectors. The group of volunteers has recently finished surrounding our nursery storage area with a deer fence.