Grow Native Massachusetts

Evenings with Experts

Wednesday, March 7th at 7PM
Cambridge Public Library

Lessons Learned when Field Botany Meets Design with Uli Lorimer, Curator of the Native Flora Garden at Brooklyn Botanic Garden

Ecologically attuned designers are increasingly looking to nature for inspiration in the design of managed landscapes. But connecting field botany to horticulture is complex, and insights gained from observations in the wild don't always translate directly into a garden.   Learn more...

This lecture co-sponsored by Mount Auburn Cemetery

The Pierce Fountain at Asa Gray Garden

 

Work on the renovation of Asa Gray Garden has continued throughout the winter and the signs of this progress are now visible. 

On your next visit to Mount Auburn, peek into the garden for a view of the new granite retaining walls that will frame the Garden's perennial beds and our new central water feature,  THE PIERCE FOUNTAIN . 

Made of Canadian Mahogany granite, the Fountain includes a centerpiece inscribed with an abstract motif of reeds and grasses.  Designed by the Halvorson Design Partnership to be uplifting, meditative, and soothing, The Pierce Fountain will anchor the renovated garden and help integrate it into the surrounding landscape.  

With installation of the hardscape elements nearing completion, the garden is ready to be planted this spring.  

Read More:

The Harold Whitworth Pierce Charitable Trust awards a grant of $250,000 to name THE PIERCE FOUNTAIN.

 

The renovation of Asa Gray Garden is part of a larger imitative to enhance the Cemetery's Entrance. 

Learn more about our current projects at Bigelow Chapel and Asa Gray Garden that are working to achieve this goal.

The Pierce Fountain. March 2018

Pierce Fountain in the renovated Asa Gray Garden.  Rendering by Halvorson Design Partnership

Horticulture Highlight: Jeffrey Pine,

Pinus jeffreyi

At Mount Auburn there are approximately 450 pine trees, representing two-dozen distinct species, out of the 125  Pinus species extant worldwide. 

Herein we look at the Jeffrey pine, Pinus jeffreyi, native to southwestern Oregon, California and into some mountains of northern Baja California. Most often growing at elevations between 5000 - 9500 feet, in the northern coast ranges it also occurs at near sea level. 

This is a large tree easily growing 60-100-feet, and some have lived for... more

Photo by Greg Heins

Support Significant Monuments

 

Mount Auburn's diverse collection of funerary art from the early nineteenth century through today, is the reason for much of our aesthetic and historical significance. By nature of being an outdoor collection, many monuments now require an extra level of care.

The Friends has been working on an initiative to prioritize... read more

Citizen Science V olunteer Training 

If you are interested in nature, and concerned about the potential impact of climate disruption and severe weather on habitat and wildlife, citizen science is right for you!  Join us to learn how you can make a difference by following a trail through our urban wildlife refuge.

Phenology Study

Document and share research about climate disruption :

March 11 or 12 - Field Training

Location: Story Chapel 10am - noon.

Naturalist Program

 
Learn about wildlife and plants, and develop skills 

to become a research assistant and informal educator:

March 10 - Insects
March 17 - Birds
March 24 - Mammals
March 31 - Flora
April 14 - Field Notes and Photography
April 21 - Nature Drawing

Location: Story Chapel 3pm - 5pm

For more information, contact:

Paul Kwiatkowski, Wildlife Conservation & Sustainability Manager

[email protected]

Jerry Mendenhal grafting  by M. Stearns

Eternally Green: Grafting for the Future

If you look around the cemetery you will see numerous trees with a distinct scar or swelling around the bottom of the trunk. Have you ever wondered what that was? More than likely, this is a grafted tree. 

Grafting is the widespread practice of joining two or more plants together to improve or preserve desirable characteristics. Sometimes trees and shrubs express a natural occurring characteristic that is attractive or unusual which growers would like to reproduce. The easiest way to do this is to...  read more

Winter Birding at Mount Auburn

Winter is an ideal time to get familiar with the year-round birds of Mount Auburn and chance to see and hear them without the distractions of migrants or foliage. 

Join us for a Winter Bird Walk!

Person of the Month:  B. F. Skinner 

As a young man, Burrhus Frederic, "B.F." Skinner was  interested in psychology and theories of behaviorism. In 1928 he applied to Harvard to study psychology, earning a Ph.D in experimental psychology in 1931. 

His theory of operant behavior, o ne of his most important scientific... learn more

History Highlight:  Vesper Path 

The low granite curbed area on Vesper Path was developed as new interment space in 1994 by Halvorson Co. And a lthough the design of the structure is low profile, each stone is customizable and there are inscriptions in several languages.   Read more...

This Land Is  Your Land

At  Massachusetts Historical Society

with support from the Barr Foundation and in  partnership with the Trustees of Reservations, Mount Auburn Cemetery, Emerald  Necklace Conservancy, and the Leventhal Map Center at the BPL.

Seating is limited!  Pre-registration suggested

Private Land | April 4 at 6PM

James Levitt, Lincoln Institute of Land Policy;

Meg Winslow, Mount Auburn Cemetery; 

Cindy Brockway, The Trustees of Reservations; 

and moderated by William Clendaniel

Public Land | April 25 at 6PM
Ethan Carr, Landscape Architecture, UMass Amherst; 

Alan Banks, National Park Service; 

Sean Fisher and Karl  Haglund, 

Massachusetts Department of Conservation  and Recreation; 

and moderated by  Keith Morgan

Future of Our Land | May 2 at 6PM
Kathy Abbot, Boston Harbor Now; 

Austin Blackmon, Chief of Environment,  City of Boston; 

and Madhu C. Dutta-Koehler, City Planning Program, Boston University

Spring Season of  Remembrance 

 

We are now accepting orders for the Spring 2018 Season of Remembrance. Visit our online store for this year's selection of seasonal potted plants (for placement at graves, lots, or crypts) and cut flower bouquets (for placement at indoor niches). 

Orders must be received by March 21st in order to be placed in the Cemetery before April 1st. 

Documentary Screening: Svetlana Boym: Exile and Imagination

Saturday, April 7th at 4PM

Documentary about Svetlana Boym, the Carl Hugo Reisinger Professor of Slavic and Comparative Literature at Harvard.  Filmmaker Judith Wechsler will answer questions .   More...