Sweet Auburn: The Magazine of the Friends of Mount Auburn A Healing and Meditative Landscape | Page 8

Asa Gray Garden A Garden To Welcome and Inspire
In collaboration with the award-winning landscape
architecture firm Halvorson Design Partnership, Mount
Auburn has re-imagined Asa Gray Garden, its most
significant public space, to embody the Cemetery’s best
qualities: a landscape of exquisite beauty comforting the
bereaved and inspiring all who visit. Within the renovated
Garden, visitors will enjoy a diverse selection of plants
that provide year-round color, texture, and interest.
Strategically placed seating and a new central water
feature will foster a sense of contemplation for those in
need of a place to reflect. An improved circulation system
through and surrounding the Garden will provide greater
access and encourage more visitors to explore its many
special features. Carefully planned views into and out of
the Garden will help to knit this important horticultural
landmark into its surroundings while also connecting it
to the other key architectural features, including Bigelow
Chapel, that define the Cemetery’s Entrance. Asa Gray Garden is the place from which most visits to
Mount Auburn begin. Lawn Avenue, the road surrounding
the Garden, provides visitor parking within sight of the
Cemetery’s Entrance and Visitor Center. Families coming
to Mount Auburn to attend a memorial service in one
of its two chapels or assembling prior to a burial on the
grounds also rely on Lawn Avenue and Asa Gray Garden
as a place to gather. Despite its premier location in our
Entrance and the heavy use of the road surrounding it, the
actual garden has in recent years been largely overlooked.
The current renovation will restore prominence to the
Garden and reestablish its role as a significant destination
within the Cemetery.
The new Garden celebrates the healing and inspirational
qualities for which the Cemetery is known. Benches and
seating ensembles placed throughout the Garden will offer
a place to reflect quietly while enjoying the seasonal hor-
ticultural highlights. An enlarged central water feature and
reflecting pool will create a sense of calm and offer a more
graceful transition between the hectic world beyond the
Cemetery gates and the tranquil and meditative landscape
6 | Sweet Auburn