Mount Auburn Cemetery is situated on the Watertown-Cambridge border, about six miles from downtown Boston and just one mile west of Harvard Square. Over 94,000 people are buried here. You may recognize some of the ?EUR??,,????'?????<

Ground crew members do string-trimming grass detail around Memorial Day floral tributes. Mount Auburn Cemetery has a staff of 15 full-time and 29 seasonal employees. This does not include cemetery operations (interment and artisan crews) and facilities maintenance staff, all under the purview of David Barnett, vice-president of horticulture operations.

Horticulture Operations

David Barnett, vice president of horticulture operations at Mount Auburn Cemetery, has a staff of 15 full-time and 29 seasonal employees. This does not include cemetery operations (interment and artisan crews) and facilities maintenance staff, which are also under his purview. The cemetery?EUR??,,????'?????<

Barnett has been with Auburn going on 13 years. He grew up in Connecticut and his grandfather owned a nursery. Barnett got an early education on site in horticulture. His formal training came via a BA in horticulture at the University of Connecticut, then a master?EUR??,,????'?????<

Barnett is also president of the American Association of Botanical Gardens and Arboreta, which recently altered its name to the American Public Gardens Association aabga.org.

Barnett has experimented with various overseeding mixes, but fescues have outcompeted the others. He overseeds with slower growing fescues, like dwarf fescue, to reduce mowing. For the past five years, the crews have not fertilized lawns directly, with a few exceptions (20-12-8 mix applied in Sept.), relying instead on the benefits of mulching to supply nitrogen to the turf.

He has three directors that report to him: director of horticulture, director of cemetery operations and director of preservation and facility maintenance. Within the horticulture dept. there are four front-line supervisors, one each for arborculture, gardening, grounds management and the greenhouse.

Seasonal workers include some college students, although most of the seasonal employees (April-November) are Hispanic, the majority coming from Puerto Rico to work and returning to work year after year. They do all the mowing, trimming and care for the flower beds, shrubs and do the pruning.

Liming was started about 10 years ago, applying 20 lbs per 1,000 sq. feet to one-fifth of the grounds each year (i.e., on a 5-year cycle). That amount of liming was barely maintaining a pH of 5 when a level of 6 was sought. The crews are now on another 5-year cycle, but applying 50 lbs per 1,000 sq. feet. Applying the lime is labor intensive because of the rolling topography and all the monuments.

Trees

The 5,300 trees on the grounds represent over 600 species. The most common trees are sugar maples, native flowering dogwood, hemlock and a large collection of oaks?EUR??,,????'?????<

The cemetery has three full time arborists to handle the tree culturing practices and keep ?EUR??,,????'?????<

The hemlock wooly adelgid (Adelges tsugae) causes some problems for the resident eastern hemlock (Tsuga canadensis). These tiny sap-sucking insects enjoy feeding on young branches where the needles attach to the twig. At Auburn, the hemlocks are sprayed with a high-grade horticulture oil.

Six American elms?EUR??,,????'?????<

Artisans setting a new monument.

One of the bigger concerns is for the 300 native flowering dogwoods, Barnett explains. Pruning and cultural practices are used to combat anthracnose fungus (Discula sp .), an infection most likely during a cool, wet spring and fall weather. Overhead watering and impaired air circulation around the trees is said to increase the chance for leaf infection.

The health of the large collection of Europrean beech trees from the 1800s is declining. Barnett is working with arborists and the university extension to mitigate the problem, which is largely a matter of proper mulching and watering to keep the trees health during droughts. He uses wood chips around the base of the beech trees. The wood chips help reduce the soil compacting of pedestrian traffic, help keep weeds down, hold moisture in when the rain does come, and add nutrients to the soil as they decompose and help regulate ground temperature.

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Wood chips are used for other trees too, but also groundcovers, the most prominent being yellow archangel (lamiastrum), along with some other shade-loving groundcovers like ferns, hostas and woodland mixes.

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In Consecration Dell the gardening crew set up a staging area on a steep slope to plant ferns and other woodland groundcovers. The crew improvised a structure from the greenhouse to facilitate their work.

Four months after the planting the new vegetation growth has helped stabilize the slope.

Ground Matters

Mount Auburn is a hilly, naturalistic setting, not a high lawn maintenance memorial-type cemetery, to the extent that preemergents/postemergents and herbicides are not applied. Under the dry climate conditions here, coupled with lots of shade and low fertility, Barnett has found the fescues are the best turf options for survival. He has experimented with various other overseeding mixes?EUR??,,????'?????<

For the past five years, the crews have not fertilized lawns directly, with a few exceptions, like near the front entrance gate. Instead, they have relied on the benefits of mulching leaves in place in the fall with the rotary mowers to supply nitrogen to the turf. The few areas that require fertilization are handled with a 20-12-8 mix. This is based on the annual soil test done in Sept. He takes just enough samples around the grounds to distinguish trends, not so much for the turf, but for tree health, particularly the beeches.

Liming was started about 10 years ago, applying 20 lbs per 1,000 sq. feet to one-fifth of the grounds each year (i.e., on a 5-year cycle). After 10 years?EUR??,,????'?????<

The crews are now on another 5-year cycle, but applying 50 lbs per 1,000 sq. feet. Applying the lime is labor intensive because of the rolling topography and all the monuments. There is not enough room for a large rotary spreader. A combination of a hopper spreader for larger areas and hand-push spreaders for tigher areas is used instead. It?EUR??,,????'?????<

I had anticipated deer might be a problem for the cemetery but no, no deer.

There are fox, coyotes, squirrels, raccoons, skunks, and ground hogs do some digging under monuments, but the philosophy here is co-existence with nature?EUR??,,????'?????<

The health of the large and venerable collection of Europrean beech trees is declining. Barnett is working with arborists and the university extension to mitigate the problem, which is largely a matter of proper mulching and watering to keep the trees health during droughts. He uses wood chips around the base of the beech trees to reduce the soil compacting, keep weeds down, holds moisture in and add nutrients to the soil as they decompose.

Irrigation

The grounds have an old underground system of 8-inch iron pipes and a network of smaller piping laid down decades ago. All the piping is identified on a utility map.

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As areas are renovated or new planting areas created, new irrigation lines have gone in, with low emitter spray nozzles. At the front entrance there are also pop-ups in the lawn on timers.

Flower beds and some trees are hand watered from water tanks on Toro carts. Soaker hoses are used around some of the big trees.

In short, large parts of the grounds are not watered and water conservation is always kept in mind for those areas that do receive the liquid stuff. In that vein, the greenhouse deploys drip irrigation for the three-winged 10,000 sq. ft. greenhouse. Here is grown mostly annuals, some perennials and groundcovers?EUR??,,????'?????<

The Big One

The biggest challenge is integrating all aspects of this garden cemetery?EUR??,,????'?????<

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