Sweet Auburn: The Magazine of the Friends of Mount Auburn Mount Auburn as a Horticultural Innovator | Page 5

a history of horticultural innovation
began winding down its operations at the Case Estates in
Weston, Mass. The Cemetery was invited to take a large
quantity of plant material (mature sized trees and shrubs)
over a period of many years. Much of this material was
used to complete the latest large-scale development project
on the grounds: the landscape planting of the Meadow area.
Flexibility, Adaptability, and Changing Tastes
and several ice-storms, all of which took a major toll on
Mount Auburn’s landscape. As each of these unanticipated
challenges was met with efforts to restore the landscape,
the lesson of diversification was amplified. A simplified
take-home lesson would be, “Don’t put all your eggs in one
basket.” Adaptability then, can be seen as both a landscape
with inherent strength from diversity in plant species, and a
horticulture program that can ramp up and customize production
for protection from disasters and as responses to them.
In 2007, Mount Auburn’s horticulture staff and Trustees
hosted a day-long conference with a panel of some of the
leading experts and administrators from the larger botanic
gardens and arboreta in the country. The purpose of the event
was to consider, on the 175th anniversary of the Cemetery’s
founding, how we should strategically plan for managing
this landscape, both in the short-term and beyond. Among
the many useful recommendations agreed to on that day
was a clear consensus that Mount Auburn should continue
Mount Auburn’s ability to produce certain quantities and
types of plants throughout its history shows a flexibility
that was necessary to match the dynamic changes that
occurred. The sod production needs of the 1930s mentioned
above coincided with the rise in popularity of the landscape
lawn style. In recent decades, the extent of that popularity
became evident as our turf maintenance operations faced
the daunting task of caring for vast lawn areas with fewer
resources. Grass was found throughout the grounds despite
sometimes difficult terrain and
the more than 40,000 monuments
and other structures that presented
obstacles. The effort to replace turf
on difficult slopes with alternative
groundcovers (primarily for safety
reasons) was begun in the 1970s
and continues today. The initiative
taught us how to annually produce
thousands of plants of ivy (Hedera
helix), creeping euonymus
Examples of successful ornamental grass and groundcovers include (l-r) fountain grass (Tennisetum
(Euonymus fortunei), pachysandra
alopecaroides, ‘moudry’), Canadian ginger (Asarum canadense), and myrtle (Vinca minor) and Siberian
(Pachysandra terminalis), and myrtle
cypress (Microbiota decussata).
(Vinca minor). When experience
showed the first two of these
somewhat problematic, we transitioned to new crops of
to diversify its plant collections. This was welcome news,
barren strawberry (Waldsteinia ternata) and yellow archangel
and not entirely unexpected. Attempts had already been
(Lamiastrum galeobdolon). These groundcovers now growing
underway to broaden the range of species growing here.
on the many slopes that line roadways and paths not only
When the Hemlock Woolly Adelgid problem initially hit,
satisfy some of the safety concerns for mowing equipment,
the Cemetery had nearly 400 hemlock trees in the collections.
but also serendipitously evoke past horticultural periods
It was by far the most represented conifer on the site. After
when diverse plantings were used to highlight topography
determining the limits of how many hemlock trees we
and create textured layers in the landscape.
could manage in a sustainable way, roughly a third were
removed and we began adding many new conifers to the
Adaptability can be considered in the context of how
collections, a practice which has continued to today.
well specific plants grow on any given site. It could also be
considered in terms of the people charged with establishing
and caring for the plants on a site. For Mount Auburn’s
Diversification and Landscape Character
horticulture staff, we can note a long series of challenges
An assessment of the grounds in 1993 revealed remnants of
caused by catastrophes and near disasters. In the 20th
many different landscape character styles from the Cemetery’s
century, the disease that eliminated the Lombardy poplar
long history. Elements could be found that evoked the early
appeared in 1915. The American Chestnut Blight hit during
rural cemetery period, the rus tic country burial grounds
the 1930s. The Hurricane of 1938 destroyed 811 of our trees
style, the Victorian period style, the 20th century lawn
(16% of the collections) and many other plantings. Dutch
landscape, ornamental parkland, and others. Even though
Elm Disease appeared in the 1950s. The Gypsy Moth Epidemic
these elements were sometimes only subtle traces in the
reached its peak in the 1970s. In recent years, starting in the
landscape, an attempt was made to draw a map demarking
1980s, we’ve seen the rise of Beech Tree Decline, Dogwood
a series of Landscape Character Zones.
Anthracnose, Hemlock Woolly Adelgid, three hurricanes
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