Sweet Auburn: The Magazine of the Friends of Mount Auburn Expanding our Educational Outreach | Page 20

People and Happenings
Wildflower Meadow
A habitat vital for many native and visiting wildlife has
been created beneath one of Mount Auburn’s oldest land-
marks, Washington Tower. A wildflower meadow—funded
in large part by a grant from the Anthony J. and Mildred D.
Ruggiero Memorial Trust of Tucson, AZ—is nearly com-
plete. Almost 10,000 plants—grasses, herbaceous perennials
and shrubs—were installed this summer and in September
the turf paths and a central viewing area were laid down.
More plants need to be added next year, and the Friends is
still seeking support for that work and for the three years
of professional maintenance critical to project’s long-term
success.
The Wildflower Meadow will be an important new
habitat at Mount Auburn. It is also a plant community that
is becoming scarce in Massachusetts due to development,
fragmentation of farmland, pollution, and competition from
invasive plants. The Mount Auburn meadow will benefit
many species of grassland birds, butterflies, insects and small
mammals and will also contain a seep, a small water feature
that is attractive to these animals.
(Top left) The new Wildflower Meadow below Washington Tower (September 2007). (Top right) Mulching the meadow just after its installation
(August 2007). (Above) One of the turf paths (September 2007). Photos by Jennifer Johnston
Media Coverage Bill on the Road Again
The June 17 Boston Sunday Globe featured an extensive
article, “The history of ether, from six feet under,” about
anesthesia residents from Massachusetts General Hospital
coming to Mount Auburn to visit the graves of some of
the notable physicians and founders of their profession
buried here. The article included photographs of the group
at the Cemetery and images of the monuments of Oliver
Wendell Holmes, William T.G. Morton, Charles T. Jackson,
Henry Jacob Bigelow and Charles Bulfinch. Mount Au-
burn’s Historical Resources Preservation Award from the
Watertown Historical Commission was mentioned in the
Watertown Tab on June 19. President Bill Clendaniel traveled this past summer and fall
to points near and far to speak about Mount Auburn and
meet with peers in the cemetery, preservation, and horti-
culture worlds. On June 4 he attended the annual meeting
of Preservation Massachusetts, held at historic Fenway Park,
and on June 21 represented Mount Auburn at the annual
medals dinner of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society
at Elm Bank in Wellesley, MA. From June 22 through 30
he visited several botanical gardens, in most cases with their
directors—Duke Farms, Hillsborough, NJ; Chanticleer,
PA; Mt. Cuba Center, DE; Longwood, PA; River Farm,
Alexandria, VA (American Horticultural Society); Mount
Vernon, VA; the National Arboretum and United States
Botanic Garden in Washington, D.C.; and Brookside Gar-
dens, Wheaton, MD. He also attended the annual American
Public Gardens Association (APGA) conference in Wash-
ington, D.C., on June 30, along with with Vice President of
Operations & Horticulture (and retiring APGA President)
David Barnett and Horticultural Curator Dennis Collins.
The autumn issue of Sanctuary, the members’ magazines of
the Massachusetts Audubon Society, mentioned the
Cemetery in an article, “The Courthouse Cooper’s,” by
Karl Meyer. He wrote: “In early May (Mass. Audubon Field
Ornithologist Simon) Perkins took a group out to Mount
Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, where birders watched
a pair of Cooper’s hawks chasing a red-tail. The chase
strongly suggested that the Coops may have set up nesting
somewhere within city limits.”
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Bill spoke on October 16 to the Garden Club of Concord,
MA, on “Mount Auburn Cemetery at 175 Years.”