Since the early 1990s, we have worked strategically to reduce our hemlock collection which then represented a significant percentage of the Cemetery’s coniferous plants. Hemlock removals started as a response to the Hemlock Woolly Adelgid, an outbreak exacerbated by climate change. Today’s collection of 125 hemlock trees is one-third of what it was three decades ago, and the introduction of additional conifer species has diversified the collections. To add new conifer taxa to the collection, we expanded our in-house plant production program. But the process is slow because we have to propagate most of these plants from seed or cuttings. There are currently 250 seedlings in production, though we anticipate using only a portion of these once they reach maturity. 

There are 640 lots on the grounds where granite curbing, iron fencing, or underground tombs present challenges for the safety of structures and staff performing routine turf maintenance. Our efforts to replace the turf in these lots with more sustainable and low-maintenance plantings started in 1993. Currently, we have completed 244 of these conversions (38%), and in recent years have averaged five new conversions per year. 

This is a long-term initiative, which anticipates further warming and growing conditions different from most of what Mount Auburn’s landscape has seen in the 190 years since its founding. After testing a fair amount of Zone 6 taxa, we will focus on adding the more proven ones into our landscape. 

This initiative is primarily a response to the earlier and earlier flowering times we are seeing in our plants each spring, a phenomenon documented by our citizen scientist phenology study. This earlier bloom creates insect (food) shortages for birds during the annual spring migration. In the past two years, 50% of new plantings represent later-flowering species, and this initiative should continue for the foreseeable future. 

In place since 1993, this is by far the broadest and most complex initiative. Our desire to preserve the historic landscape initially drove much of the work supporting this initiative, but it turns out that historically appropriate practices are also more sustainable. For example, to introduce a more naturalistic appearance in the Cemetery’s historic core, we replaced traditional turf with lower-maintenance (minimally mowed) turf and groundcovers. In other parts of the Cemetery, we have transitioned high-maintenance shrubs to lower-maintenance alternatives. Towards this goal, we have replaced nearly 90% of the hedges in “the Meadow” area (near the Greenhouse) with lower maintenance plantings. In addition, we’ve used the renovations at Harvard Hill, the Appleton lot, the North Dell Meadows, the Beech-Central historic zone, the apiary meadow, and the slopes along Mountain Ave to introduce turf alternatives. Looking ahead, the final phase of our Indian Ridge Restoration project will see turf replaced with a sedge-wildflower meadow, and a proposed project along Chestnut Avenue will convert nearly 4 acres of turf to a shrubland-meadow.