Visions of Nature in the Dell Part II: The Ecological Landscape

By Jena Tegeler

Consecration Dell—a forested valley surrounding a kettle pond—is known today by naturalists as an especially active space for encounters with wildlife. While an appreciation of the flowers and foliage that grow on its steep slopes has endured, the past three decades have represented a reinvigorated interest in creating and maintaining wildlife habitat. This recent trend isn’t entirely new in the horticultural history of the Cemetery. Even by 1870, a Committee on Birds was established to encourage the protection, encouragement and introduction of avian life within the Cemetery”.¹ And in 1952 Oakes Ames described a section of the Cemetery that was specifically planted for birds and let to grow “wild”, calling Mount Auburn “an ideal place of refuge” for the birds.”²

Overridingly, however, the aspiration of the picturesque landscape aesthetic guided the horticultural maintenance and design practices of the Dell up until the 1990s. As the early creators of the Cemetery reacted to the social and physical ills that they associated with the city, so the advocates of ecological horticulture reacted to the harmful effects of cities on animal and plant life. In doing so they adopted the rhetoric of wildlife conservation and strengthened the existing affiliations of Mount Auburn as an urban ecological hub that provided sanctuary for animals. Under the guidance of president Dave Barnett, the Dell would become the locus for applying ecological thinking to the management of the Cemetery.

Restoration to this state was not however, simply a process of relinquishing control, nor of letting the plant material grow uninhibited. An intensive period of management began when the Cemetery removed invasive Norway Maples and their seedlings from the slopes. The maples were identified as destructive to the soil and plant life of the Dell--they had outcompeted the red oaks that formerly defined the woodland and shaded out other native groundcovers and shrubs that would keep the slopes from eroding. This intensive removal was the first step in breaking a pattern of relatively less management than had occurred in the Dell since the late 1800s.

A series of planting projects were initiated in sequence across the slopes and sections of the Dell. The planting lists for these projects included various selections of ecotypical woodland species, with the explicit intention of providing food and habitat for the birds, insects, and mammals adapted to this region, while retaining aesthetic horticultural appeal. In addition to woody plant material, groundcovers were added to replace the existing lawn, providing low cover for birds and other animals. Fruiting, seed and pollen-bearing plants were considered key choices to provide nutrition to migrating birds, foraging mammals, and insects. The shores of the pond also became a defining element of the restoration design. Rather than hardening the pond’s edge for visual effect, the shoreline was diversified with various shrubs that would provide access in and out of the pool for an abundant and relatively rare population of spotted salamanders who live in the Dell. Local conservation experts were consulted regarding proposed designs for the pond, who made recommendations regarding its water level at various times of year and the amount and type of shrub cover at its edge.³ Herpetologist Joe Martinez began monitoring the spotted salamander population, which had existed in the Cemetery since before the Cemetery’s wetlands were sculpted into serene reflecting pools.

In addition to the emphasis on an ecological approach, The Master Plan of 1993 recommended that the Dell should “represent the last vestige of the original rural cemetery landscape”⁴⁵. This was perhaps building on a tendency to see the Dell as a historically less maintained area of the Cemetery. In the 1978 Annual Report, for example, the Dell had been identified as a less formal area, where “wild flower plants” might be tried as a new horticultural approach.⁶ There is a critical distinction to make between the recreation of a 19th century rural landscape, and the fantasy of the Dell as a remnant wilderness. The notion that the Dell is and remains to be an archetypal landscape unmodified by human occupation and design is false. Furthermore, this understanding perpetuates a colonial erasure of the Algonquian-speaking peoples called the Massachusset who lived in what they called Anmoughcawgen by the Quinobequin (Charles River) before Europeans settled and dominated the area.⁷ Not only were the indigenous people who lived and continue to live in this region, using and shaping the landscape in fundamental ways, but as historian Margaret Bruchac writes, “knowledges of past events, geological formations and ecosystems, and guidelines for inter-species relationships within the homeland were preserved and encoded in local oral traditions, commonly called ‘stories’.”⁸ In the Euro-centric perspective, ecology is understood primarily through scientific study and a conservationist ethic, often divorced from aesthetic considerations. In the indigenous worldview, ecological relationships-- relating to other beings, places, and landforms--are heavily entwined with social and cultural knowledge.

In efforts to align contemporary landscapes with more sustainable practices that consider human effects on other creatures, the techniques of ecological science are often used to ascertain an accurate understanding of what a historic New England forest might have looked like and how it functioned. In trying to maintain the Dell as a static representation of a historic landscape, designers and gardeners are confronted with the challenge that natural succession, human-driven impacts, and cultural change are inevitable and may have unpredicted effects on the stated goal of ecological stewardship. One such unexpected outcome was the hurricane of 1938, which created a significant destruction of the Cemetery’s tree collection, but may have been a very abundant year for migratory bird life, and allowed for the introduction of new tree species.⁹ The spotted salamander population may have been able to survive decades of pesticide use and leaf removal in the Cemetery due to the surprisingly useful infrastructure of the cracks provided by granite monuments in the Dell.¹⁰ These and other anecdotes complicate our notions of what exactly a natural landscape should look like. As our region warms, native trees will endure climate-related diseases, and ideas of historical and ecological appropriateness will continue to be called into question.

The cultural phenomena of the Dell is not simply a historical snapshot of a former landscape, nor a curated garden of native plantings, but rather something much more interesting and rich. It is a place where aesthetics and ecology are understood together by the people who visit and work there daily. The life cycles of not only bird and mammal life but also insects, mushrooms, and amphibians are celebrated here. These interactions enrich an understanding of life at a different scale and according to different senses. They expand contemporary design philosophy beyond the purely painterly vision that its founders imported from European landscape design. The small acts of maintenance performed here and in other gardens have real and symbolic impacts on these creatures, and the Cemetery is actively evolving its practices to reflect this. Even the gardening tools used here will have ramifications for the livelihoods of these creatures. But beyond the native planting lists we choose for our gardens in hopes of sustaining wildlife, we should not forget the power of beauty in compelling us to care about our surroundings.The fleeting moment when the delicate blossom of Sanguinaria canadensis appears on the upper slopes of the Dell is an anticipated moment. It is a reminder of a yearly cycle when we might catch a glimpse of a salamander on a rainy spring night in the Cemetery, reflecting that its blossom represents a continuing memorial to an ever-changing planet.

This two-part article was made possible with a grant from Stanley Smith Horticultural Trust (SSHT). In 2022 and 2023, Jena Tegeler consulted on the landscape design of the native planting enhancements on Violet Path in the Dell which was also supported by SSHT in addition to grants from the A.J. & M.D. Ruggiero Trust, the Richard Saltonstall Charitable Foundation, and individual contributions.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
¹ Mount Auburn Cemetery Trustees Records, Vol. 5, 1870, https://fromthepage.com/mountauburncemetery/mount-auburn-cemetery/1831-005-005/display/1134790

² Oakes I. Ames, “Mount Auburn’s Sixscore Years” reprinted from the Proceedings of the Cambridge Historical Society: Volume 34

(read 1952), 86.

³ Letter from Bryan Windmiller of Hyla Ecological Services to Dave Barnett, 1997.

⁴ Shary Page Berg, Mount Auburn Cemetery 1993 Master Plan, Volume I: Overview and Recommendations (Cambridge, MA, 1993), 51.

⁵ Berg defines a rural landscape here as being a forest with a variety of differently-aged native trees. Berg, Mount Auburn Cemetery 1993 Master Plan: Volume I, 39.

⁶ Mount Auburn Annual Report, 1978.

⁷ Sage Carbone, “You live in Anmoughcawgen,” Cambridge Day, February 27, 2023, https://www.cambridgeday.com/2023/02/27/you-live-in-anmoughcawgen/.

⁸ Margaret M. Bruchac, “Earthshapers and placemakers: Algonkian Indian stories and the landscape,” in Indigenous Archaeologies, edited by Claire Smith and H. Martin Wobst (London and New York: Routledge, 2005) 60.

⁹ Ames, “Mount Auburn’s Sixscore Years”, 87.

¹⁰ Joe Martinez, cited in Don Lyman, “Bringing New Life to Mount Auburn Cemetery,” Massachusetts Wildlife no. 4 (2015): 34.