Excellence and Innovation in
Horticulture
We continue to maintain Mount Auburn’s historically significant landscape at
very high standards, committed to preserving and enhancing the plantings that reflect more
than 180 years of changing ideas about landscape design. Horticulture supports the Cemetery
as a place of perpetual commemoration and a place of exceptional beauty and inspiration,
and we practice environmental stewardship in all that we do.
During the past fiscal year:
• We opened our new Greenhouse with a ribbon-cutting ceremony in April of 2013.
During the fiscal year 28,000 annuals, 9,000 perennials/groundcovers, and 2,750
woody plants were propagated in this new facility.
• We completed the first phase in a planned series of landscape enhancements near the
new Greenhouse with the planting of 320 shrubs along Grove Street side of the building
and the installation of a grass courtyard on the side facing into the Cemetery.
• Staff installed new shrub and tree plantings in several locations to enhance the landscape
near active sales areas.
• Staff hosted 60 landscape maintenance professionals from the Trustees of Reservations
and the National Park Service in August for a day-long sustainability workshop to share
Mount Auburn’s current practices on composting, equipment usage and the replacement
of turf with sustainable groundcovers.
• Mount Auburn added 46 specimens—representing 6 species—of conifer to its tree nursery
for eventual planting on the grounds in support of its efforts to diversify its conifer collection and combat the effects of the Hemlock Woolly Adelgid outbreak.
• Staff planted 200 new herbaceous and woody plants along Fountain Avenue in support
of an initiative to enhance the Victorian character of that section of the Cemetery.
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