Friendship grows through years of volunteering at Hunter Region Botanic Garden

WHEN Bill Mason first offered to volunteer at Hunter Region Botanic Gardens, he wanted to make one thing clear.

“I don’t know a weed from a flower,” he told then chairperson, Jan Noble.

Fortunately, there were buildings to maintain and plenty of other jobs waiting.

Twenty years later, Mr Mason is still there, working alongside fellow long-serving volunteer Kevin Worth.

The pair shared the Gardens’ Volunteer of the Year Award for 2026, having previously received Meritorious Service Awards in 2016 and Life Memberships in 2019.

Over the years, their work has included building a boardwalk, maintaining buildings, and replacing gravel paths with paving.

Mason estimates the volunteers have laid around 230,000 pavers, creating around 2.4km of pathways.

The two men have built a friendship that extends well beyond their volunteer shifts.

Worth remembers arriving on his first day and being told by Mason to follow him.

“That was the start of a pretty good friendship,” Worth told News Of The Area.

Since then, they have played golf, ridden bikes, and enjoyed meals with friends made through the Gardens.

There is also plenty of banter.

Originally from Aberdeen in Scotland, Mason jokes that Worth sometimes has to translate for him.

“Half of the people don’t understand me, so Kevin tries to translate.”

Mason, who recently celebrated his 80th birthday, volunteers from Monday to Wednesday, helping maintain paths and organising what’s needed for jobs around the grounds.

Both men have also served on the board of directors.

The Gardens are always looking for more volunteers, with opportunities to help in the gardens and grounds, maintain buildings, or work in the café.

As the pair discovered, knowing the difference between a weed and a flower is not a requirement.

“We do our work, drink a lot of coffee – and have a lot of fun,” Mason added.

By Althea GUINSBERG