The garden was established in 1988 by Tony Avent and his late wife Michelle.
In 2018, Tony and Anita Avent gifted the privately owned Juniper Level Botanic Gardens to N.C. State University, while retaining lifetime rights.
No synthetic non-organic fertilizers have been used in the garden since 1988, and all runoff (outside of hurricanes) is captured on-site through a series of rain gardens and recirculating runoff collection systems.
The botanic garden is open eight weekends per year.
It also hosts The Center for Mindfulness and Nonduality, established by Anita Avent in 2013.