Sweet Auburn: The Magazine of the Friends of Mount Auburn A Dynamic and Evolving Landscape | Page 3

The theme of this issue of Sweet Auburn, “A Dynamic and Evolving Landscape,” is an easy one
for me to get excited about. Mount Auburn’s landscape has been evolving for 185 years, the last 23
of which I have been a part of. When I arrived as Director of Horticulture in 1993, the Trustees
and staff had just completed a master planning process resulting in guidelines and recommendations
for Mount Auburn’s future as both an active cemetery and a dynamic cultural institution. What
attracted me to Mount Auburn, in addition to the spectacular trees of course, was the stated commitment that “preservation and enhancement of the landscape will come first in all future decisions
regarding cemetery development.”
I was fortunate to arrive at Mount Auburn when such a great plan was in place and such an exciting
future had been charted. Ever since then, we have been working to preserve the historic character
of Mount Auburn’s evolving landscape while also enhancing it as a cemetery, arboretum, outdoor
museum and wildlife sanctuary within a beautiful park-like setting. Our work has always respected
and appreciated the amazing vision and design skills of our founders (pp. 2-5), who imagined
and created a place of beauty and tranquility to accommodate the burial and commemoration
of the deceased while also providing comfort and inspiration to the living. Over the past
185 years, many others have modified or influenced the design of the Cemetery’s landscape in
response to changing horticultural and architectural tastes and funerary customs, with four major
periods characterizing Mount Auburn’s evolution (pp. 6-7).
And today Mount Auburn’s landscape continues to be both preserved and refined, as evidenced by two major landscape
projects completed in the spring of 2016. The renovation of the “corridor” between Beech Avenue and Central Avenue
near Bigelow Chapel was designed and installed by Mount Auburn’s own horticultural staff, and made possible because of
contributed funds (pp. 8-9). Concurrently, the “rejuvenation” of the area known as Harvard Hill was designed by Michael
Van Valkenburgh Associates, installed by Robert Hanss Landscape Construction, and achieved thanks to a wonderful
collaboration with Harvard University and Arnold Arboretum (pp.10-13).
Mount Auburn’s landscape and rich history have recently been recognized in several exciting ways. In April a new book
about Mount Auburn by Stephen Kendrick, entitled “The Li