Sweet Auburn: The Magazine of the Friends of Mount Auburn Mount Auburn as a Horticultural Innovator

a history of horticultural innovation Acquiring Plants—Building the Collections Despite a long record of plant purchases, Mount Auburn’s in-house plant production programs deserve the greater credit for giving us a world-class botanical collection. Our first consolidated facility, a complex of greenhouse-nursery space located on Brattle Street opposite the front gate, was begun in 1856 with the construction of the first glasshouse. Subsequent construction brought the overall area under glass to 5,000 square feet. This was supplemented by numerous cold frames and hot-beds with the total facility covering roughly 1.5 acres. Plant production at this facility focused on starting plants from seeds and cuttings. The technology used for heating and insulation would seem crude by today’s standards, yet they represented the best of that period. Mount Auburn enjoyed the expertise of some of the brightest growers and horticulturists in the country. Perhaps this, and the fact that the Cemetery’s horticulture staff numbered more than a hundred, explains how plant production at this time was so impressive. A typical year saw more than 250 trees and 400 shrubs planted on the grounds and in an unusual year (1882), due to reasons that remain a mystery, 645 trees and 1,892 shrubs were planted. The Brattle Street facility lasted about 80 years until it was abandoned in 1935. It served the Cemetery during several significant periods. One of these was the Victorian period, during which the demand for plants by lot-owners was unusually high and tastes were exuberant. Rarities and bold combinations of plants were celebrated. At this time, tropical plants were commonplace on the grounds and required careful overwintering inside of glasshouses. Historical Documentation It is fascinating to see accounts of the initial efforts to establish the experimental garden and cemetery. By 1833-34, a total of 450 different varieties of seeds had been received from around the world. The most exotic source might have been the Botanical Society of the Kingdom of Naples, and perhaps one of the more recognizable exotic plants was the Guul ibrischim or “silk tassel rose” sent from Turkey. Today we know it as “mimosa” (Albizia julibrissin), and although the Turkish form proved not hardy in this climate, eventually a hardier form was discovered in Korea. Some intriguing correspondence is preserved in Mount Auburn’s historical archives, which documents an 1896 effort to acquire more than 1,600 plants (67 different species and varieties) from a nursery in Tokyo. This somewhat daring transaction was financed through the Chartered Bank of India, Australia, and China, and resulted in some of the earliest introductions of Japanese plant species to America. 2 | Sweet Auburn In addition, elaborate flower beds were planted in complex mosaic layouts. Even the gravel borders around fountains and gardens were con- structed in geometric patterns using different colored stone. In the late 1800s, Mount Auburn produced more than 70,000 annuals per year that were needed for flower An aerial view of Story Chapel, the Administration beds. Today, we produce only 50,000 Building, and the Brattle Street greenhouses from despite the Cemetery 1937 (by Fairchild Aerial Surveys) expanding its acreage by almost 12 percent. A redefinition of the Cemetery’s horticultural mission by Oakes Ames in the 1930’s, which essentially called for an arboretum-like approach to plant acquisitions and a shift towards using more naturalistic plantings instead of flower beds, coincided with the establishment of a new green- house-nursery complex in 1936. This second six-house facility (23,000 sq. ft. under glass), built on the present-day “Meadow” and adjacent to more than ten acres of nur

Sweet Auburn: The Magazine of the Friends of Mount Auburn Mount Auburn as a Horticultural Innovator | Page 4