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The crew at Pennsylvania?EUR??,,????'???s Warren County Memorial Park relies on painstakingly-maintained equipment?EUR??,,????'??+some of it dating from the 1960s?EUR??,,????'??+to mow, dig, haul and plow. The crew has also mastered the use of concrete molds to make landscape timbers, lock-block walls, patio blocks, and bases for bronze memorials on-site.
Warren County Memorial Park is located in Warren County in rural, northwestern Pennsylvania. The developed area of about 26 acres encompasses four traditional burial gardens, a separate garden for infants, two lakes, four buildings, and about eight acres in lawn for future development.
The park has more than 200 trees, approximately 1,000 shrubs, hundreds of perennials, and several thousand spring bulbs. Two full-time staff members perform all maintenance for buildings, grounds, and equipment. We help out as needed.
Cemetery maintenance is a different kind of landscape management than golf courses or commercial property. Very few cemeteries have the benefit of the budget dollars of commercial properties. Warren doesn?EUR??,,????'???t have in-ground sprinkler systems, high-tech mowers or the buying power of larger operations. In addition, the cemetery answers directly to the thousands of families who utilize our memorial park, families who are primarily interested in their personal site, before the general appearance of the park. It makes little difference if the over-all landscape is beautiful if their individual lot needs maintenance. The challenge is to keep everything beautiful?EUR??,,????'???all the time, even though we?EUR??,,????'???re digging up the ground on a regular basis.
After flower removal, sections are mowed with a 72" Woods L306 belly-deck mower mounted on a 1975 International 140 tractor. A 1976 Gravely (with a 2002 12hp Kohler industrial engine) with a 40-inch front-mount flat-knife blade is used for trimming around trees, shrub beds, and any other areas that are too small for the 140. We use a Stihl 45 trimmer around features, walkways, and to trim all slopes. With our hillside location, it takes approximately six man-hours per week just to do the weeding work.
Our mowing schedule divides the cemetery into two sections, which are mowed on Thursdays and Fridays of each week. If a mowing is cancelled because of drought?EUR??,,????'??+or as we had the last two summers, excessive rain?EUR??,,????'??+we do not mow the section until the following week. This constant schedule allows our families to always know when their section will be mowed. The only exception to our regular schedule is Memorial Day weekend when our staff, with Ed on the 140, Rick Mitchell on the Gravely and Jesse Schlopy with a weedy, mow and trim the entire park on the Thursday before the holiday.
Memorial Day is the ?EUR??,,????'??Christmas?EUR??,,????'?? of the cemetery season. Despite weather, equipment breakdowns, or employee challenges, every blade of grass, tree, shrub, memorial, and flowerbed must be perfect for that weekend. Two weeks prior, every memorial in the cemetery is edged with a trimmer. This requires all three guys on ?EUR??,,????'??weedy duty?EUR??,,????'?? for almost a week. The staff prefers the Stihl trimmers because they don?EUR??,,????'???t vibrate as much as other kinds we?EUR??,,????'???ve tried. Anyone who has run a weedy (trimmer) for any length of time can appreciate the benefits of less vibration and less weight. The Friday of Memorial Day weekend, every bronze memorial (about 4,000 total) is pressure washed using a 250-gallon water tank with the Satoh?EUR??,,????'???s PTO, or Power Take-Off unit.
About 20 flats of annuals are planted the week before Memorial Day. Often, we spend an evening gathering every sheet, towel, burlap strip and tarp available to cover the annuals because of a late frost?EUR??,,????'??+reversing the process the next morning before families start arriving to decorate their loved-ones?EUR??,,????'??? graves.
Besides lawn maintenance, most of our time is spent opening and closing gravesites, setting bronze memorials, in chemical applications, pruning trees and shrubs (in March and April), weeding beds and upgrading the landscaping.
Our first priority on any given day, of course, is handling funerals. We perform 80 to 90 funerals a year, requiring a minimum of two men for four to six hours per interment. We lay up to 150 feet of plywood ?EUR??,,????'??roads?EUR??,,????'?? to and from gravesites for equipment access. Graves are dug with a 1994 John Deere 300-D tractor/loader/backhoe operated by Rick Mitchell, our grounds foreman. Depending upon the location, dirt is hauled from the site by our 1973 Ford F350 dual-rear-wheel four-wheel drive dump truck or a Redi-Dump trailer, pulled with an Allis Chalmers 5020 four-wheel drive tractor/loader. The front loader on the Allis also gives us the versatility we need for hauling topsoil or mulch into areas where a larger tractor would leave ruts.
A Ford four-cylinder Sullair industrial air compressor with a 90-lb. jackhammer is used to break up boulders. The jackhammer is necessary for about one fourth of our interments.
A 1997 Ford F350 four-wheel drive pickup truck with a Fischer seven-foot electric plow keeps the drives clear in the winter. A concrete vault lid in the back of the F350 provides traction. To clear access to a burial site, we use a Toro snow-blower, or a four-foot, rear-mount Canadian snow blower, powered by the Satoh?EUR??,,????'???s PTO. We also have front-mount plows for the dump truck, the 140 and a rear-mount for the Satoh, if needed.
Rick keeps a maintenance schedule for all equipment. He?EUR??,,????'???s a good mechanic and has rebuilt both the Satoh (in 2003) and the Allis (in 2002). The Gravely was professionally rebuilt in 2002, as well. The steering box of the Allis was replaced in November 2004.
One thing that makes us somewhat unique as a cemetery is the pre-cast concrete we make and use. We have molds for concrete fencing, landscape timbers, lock-block walls and caps, patio blocks, and bases for bronze memorials. By using concrete dyes, we provide families with color options for their memorial base, and create colored block edging and retaining walls. By setting timbers flush with the lawns, we create neat edges around features, water hydrants, and beds. In the last two years, we have replaced or installed 125 eight-foot sections of three-rail concrete fencing, replaced old wooden railroad ties around hydrants and garden features with new slate gray concrete timbers, and installed over 1,000 feet of colored lock-block walls in the Garden of the Ten Commandments and around Babyland. We use a Muller ?EUR??,,????'??one-bag?EUR??,,????'?? electric cement mixer, using a 3-2-1 formula of gravel, sand, and cement. Rick can pour a single timber and six blocks from each mix, or one five-rail fence mold and the post mold. Each piece cures inside for five days, then is stacked outside until needed.
Ed maintains a private pesticide applicator?EUR??,,????'???s license, and is our resident expert on chemical and fertilizer applications, as well as bugs, fungi and diseases. The lawns are sprayed with broadleaf weed killer every other spring, usually with Momentum, and fertilized about every three years in the fall. A 65-gallon PTO-driven tank is used for lawn chemicals, such as Momentum. Lesco-flo, a non-ionic surfactant, is applied by backpack sprayer to assist water absorption in wetter areas. We use a 25-gallon electric tank pulled by the ATV to apply RoundUp Pro for weed control where appropriate, combined with Surflan for longer results. The Park has over 100 rose bushes throughout the grounds that are treated with a three-way systemic fertilizer three to four times per season to maintain bloom and protect against aphids, Japanese beetles and various leaf diseases and fungi.
We use a cemetery-mix grass seed (70 percent bluegrass, 10 percent fescue, 20 percent rye) for overseeding or reseeding when necessary. For burials, the sod is lifted and replaced most of the time. However, when the ground is frozen, we dispose of the sod and reseed in April and early May, so that the grass is green and full by Memorial Day. A Lely broadcast spreader pulled behind one of the tractors is used for grass seed, fertilizer, and for sand and snow-and-ice melting formula in the winter.
Also, in 2003 we began construction of footers and patios for the installation of four new columbarium towers. (A columbarium is a mausoleum that holds the remains of cremation.) Our staff excavated the areas on either side of an existing ?EUR??,,????'??fountain patio?EUR??,,????'?? and laid the concrete block footers for the granite towers. A contractor completed the patio areas with colored, stamped concrete. The first tower was delivered in August 2003. The second tower is expected in May 2005. Each one is over seven feet tall, and weighs over 4,000 pounds. Our legacy columbarium towers provide our families with premium inurnment for those who prefer cremation.
This past summer, 300 feet of colored lock-block retaining walls were set to line the entrance drive of the Garden of the Ten Commandments. A trench along each side of the roadway allowed the first tier of blocks to be set below-grade on a gravel bed. Because of the grade, the wall is staggered as it climbs the hill, four blocks high to meet the grade of the adjoining lawn. Pin oak and spruce trees along the road have been incorporated into the new beds. Sod has been removed and the beds leveled and mulched, ready for planting. Natural stone retaining walls along the boulevard in the center of the garden are scheduled to be replaced in 2006 when we have manufactured enough blocks for that project.
Also in 2004, we planted more than a dozen trees, transplanted over 200 perennials and divided clumps of daffodil bulbs to spread more spring color. We plant or replace at least a dozen trees each year.
One of our biggest challenges is deer damage. Nothing is off-limits as far as they are concerned. Deer have destroyed juniper hedges, shrub beds, borders of daylilies, iris, and hostas. Every tulip has been killed because the leaves are eaten before they can flower or feed the bulbs. Young trees are subject to male ?EUR??,,????'??rutting?EUR??,,????'??? every fall, so we stake them for support and protection. In late October, shrub beds are surrounded with mesh deer fence, which is removed in mid-April when the deer have ventured deeper into the surrounding woods to give birth to their young. By mid-summer, fawns frolic across the lawns, nibbling their way through our summer flowers. A local farmer recommended that we nail Irish Spring soap bars?EUR??,,????'???in the box?EUR??,,????'???to stakes and place them around our perennial beds. It?EUR??,,????'???s how he protects his cornfields.
We had our doubts, but it works! We got a Sam?EUR??,,????'???s Club multi-pack of Irish Spring, and spaced them near the hostas and daylilies. A bar lasts a full year, but they are not very decorative. An even more effective deterrent is a product called Liquid Fence. The first time Ed used it, I was sure the dogs had dragged something dead and vile out of the woods and deposited the carcass in the yard. The worst of the smell dissipated in a couple of hours, however, and the deer did no more grazing on that bed. We plan to order Liquid Fence by the gallon for the summer.
The lakes on site are spring-fed and flow steadily all year. Crystal Lake, situated adjacent to the entrance of the Park, has hundreds of golden carp, originally stocked from someone?EUR??,,????'???s fish tank years ago. We have two resident black ducks, along with mallards that nest each spring, and Canadian geese that stop en route north or south. Great blue heron fish the shores, and deer, bear, coyotes, and other wildlife water at the lakes or along the creek. There are about 20 bluebird houses spaced throughout the park that provide homes for an assortment of birds and flying squirrels. Feeders encourage birds, squirrels and chipmunks to feed within sight of the office windows.
Since we live on-site, we are available to families after hours or on weekends as needed. Finding a lost silk bouquet, loosening a stuck vase, locating a loved one?EUR??,,????'???s gravesite, or providing golf-cart transportation for someone who cannot walk to their lot?EUR??,,????'??+the cemetery is as much a labor of love as it is a business. We enjoy the creative aspects of landscape planning, and the satisfaction of a completed project?EUR??,,????'???whether it?EUR??,,????'???s a freshly-mown lawn or a newly-designed perennial border. We are always grateful to be able to meet the needs of families?EUR??,,????'??+and, we have the most beautiful ?EUR??,,????'??yard?EUR??,,????'?? in Warren County.
Francisco Uviña, University of New Mexico
Hardscape Oasis in Litchfield Park
Ash Nochian, Ph.D. Landscape Architect
November 12th, 2025
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