Sweet Auburn: The Magazine of the Friends of Mount Auburn A Healing and Meditative Landscape | Page 9

within. An improved circulation system will provide greater access in and through the Garden, encouraging more visitors to explore this unique setting. Ripe with educa- tional benefits, the new Garden will feature prominently on guided tours and within the Cemetery’s printed and electronic visitor guides. Sharing the story of the Garden’s evolution through time will help to educate visitors about the Cemetery’s history as an ever-changing landscape that reflects two centuries of design and horticul- tural practices. Specimens from the Garden will be regularly highlighted on horticulture-themed walking tours and its plant collection will help to interpr et and celebrate the important legacy of its namesake, botanist Asa Gray. An Impressive Display Garden with a Story Throughout its history, Asa Gray Garden has showcased the horticultural expertise and skill of the Cemetery’s staff. Like its previous iterations, the renovated Garden will be a contemporary reflection of Mount Auburn as a significant designed landscape with a long tradition of public horticulture. For the past several years, the horticultural staff has been actively working to extend periods of bloom throughout the spring and summer months and increase fall and winter-time interest by diversifying the plant collections of the Cemetery. The carefully-curated collection of trees, shrubs, flowering perennials and annuals, bulbs, and grasses selected for the new Asa Gray Garden will provide color, texture, and unique interest in all four seasons, ensuring that it exemplifies one of the defining characteristics of the Cemetery’s larger landscape. Though transforming Asa Gray Garden into an impres- sive horticultural display garden has been the primary goal, the 130 species of plants to be included in the layout have been selected for more than just aesthetic qualities. Appropriate pairings of plant species indigenous to the Eastern United States and their counterparts indigenous to East Asia will celebrate the important botanical research of Harvard University professor Asa Gray (1810–1888), for whom the Garden is named. In the course of Gray’s ground-breaking work with herbarium specimens, he noted the striking similarities between American and Asian species. He advanced the hypothesis that these species had descended from common ancestors and developed subtle differences during their long separation on different conti- nents. Gray was one of the leading American collaborators of Charles Darwin, and his work supporting Darwin’s theory of natural selection and species evolution helped to establish international respect for American scientific traditions. Gray was buried at Mount Auburn following his death in 1888. In the early 1940s, the Cemetery’s Trustees voted to rename the Garden, previously known as “the Lawn,” in Gray’s honor. With the new plantings, the renovated Garden will become a living tribute to the “Father of American Botany,” helping to tell the story of his important work. In addition to celebrating Asa Gray in a more dynamic way, the use of Asian species within the Garden references Mount Auburn’s long history of using non-native orna- mental plants to add interest and diversity to the landscape. From early in its history, Mount Auburn benefited from the great age of plant exploration, adding specimens from around the world to its collections. While our landscape today has certainly benefitted from these exotic plant introductions, we have also learned valuable lessons about the potential dangers of some of these species becoming invasive and detrimental to native habitats and the environ- ment. These lessons have been carefully considered with the plant selections chosen for Asa Gray Garden. Among their many other values, the selected plants will be used to foster a public conversation about responsible use of non- native species. In keeping with one of Mount Auburn’s key strategic initiatives to be a model of environmental stewardship, we are committed to utilizing the renovated Garden to help us teach about the importance of plant biodiversity as we respond to climate change, while also emphasizing the potential dangers of plant introductions from other parts of the world. Your Support The hardscape construction (road, fountain, utilities, curbs, and benches) is well underway and will be completed in early spring, followed by the planting. We are actively working this winter and spring to achieve our goal of raising $2 million in contributed support for this exciting project. If you would like to contribute to the renovation of Asa Gray Garden, please contact Jude Bedel, Director of Individual Giving, at 617-607-1949 or [email protected]. 2018 Volume 1 | 7