PARK AND CEMETERY. 
263 
GROUND COVERINGS IN THE CEMETERY 
An address before the St. Louis Convention of the A. A. C. S., by 
O. C. Simonds, Landscape Gardener, Graceland Cemetery, Chicago. 
Those who design, develop or care for 
cemeteries are seeking always to create 
I beautiful scenery. This is right, because 
| when friends leave us for their final rest- 
ing places we wish to think of them as 
| having attractive surroundings. An impor- 
tant element in nearby scenery is the 
ground cover. Trees develop interesting 
sky lines, give us shade, show us graceful 
or picturesque branching and produce beau- 
i tiful and varied foliage, flowers and fruits, 
but after looking at their beauty our eyes 
turn naturally from them to the ground. 
We usually think of this as covered with 
grass, and for most places there can be no 
better cover than a rich, green velvety lawn, 
free from weeds, evenly cut and showing 
everywhere, as it rises or falls, the graceful 
modeling of the earth beneath. Such a sur- 
face is most agreeable to walk upon and 
very beautiful to see, especially when light- 
; ed up by the slanting rays of the sun 
toward the end of the day, with here and 
there the long, cloud-like shadows of trees 
and shrubs. 
But there is not always sufficient water to 
keep a lawn fresh and green. Sometimes 
there are surfaces so steep that it would 
1 be difficult and expensive to mow them, 
j They are even too steep to walk upon. 
: Again there are areas so shaded that it is 
i impossible to cover them with satisfactory 
! turf. How should such places be treated? 
i How does Nature cover them? With the 
j exception of exposed rocks, wind-swept 
! desert and wave-washed water margins, 
| Nature covers all surfaces with some form 
i of vegetation. Shaded ground, like that in 
I woods, is covered with fallen leaves or 
! with shade-loving plants, like adder tongue, 
| bellwort, hepaticas, squirrel corn, blood- 
roots and ferns. Steep hillsides, before the 
I plow arrived, were covered with some 
j growth that prevented washing, so that 
small streams ran clear even after heavy 
rains. Often there is an undergrowth of 
shrubs or young trees that makes an ef- 
fective covering under overhanging trees 
and in the open the ground is frequently 
covered with shrubs and vines. The su- 
periority of these plants over grass as a 
protection for steep surfaces is sometimes 
shown during a period of drought, when a 
brown grass-covered hillside may show 
spots of green here and there where wild 
grape vines, Virginia creepers or bitter- 
sweet have become established, or other 
areas where sumachs, wild roses, Indian 
currants, hazel bushes, elderberries or other 
spreading shrubs retain their freshness of 
color. It is a pretty safe rule to cover 
such hillsides with plants having a woody 
growth. 
The suggestions which have just been 
made regarding the use in certain places of 
plants other than grass as a green mantle 
for the earth are as suitable for parks and 
home grounds as for cemeteries, but it 
may be worth while to call the attention 
of cemetery superintendents to the oppor- 
tunities they have for adding an interesting 
variety of plants to those they commonly 
use, thus not only increasing the beauty of 
the grounds under their charge, but intro- 
ducing also what may prove a measure of 
economy. 
Let us consider various situations which 
present some difficulty and enumerate some 
of the plants which might be used with sat- 
isfaction for covering the ground. 
First : Steep surfaces. Occasionally it is 
necessary or advisable to use ravines as 
roadways. Such ravines may have steep 
ground on either side, ground that is un- 
suitable for burial lots, but which may be 
treated in such a way as to be an attractive 
feature in itself. Such ground can gen- 
erally be protected and at the same time 
made pleasing by using a combination of 
trees and shrubs in a way similar to that 
which Nature uses in protecting the bor- 
ders of valleys and water courses. The 
writer knows of very steep surfaces in 
Iowa and Missouri that are perfectly pro- 
tected by a growth of native trees such as 
oaks, hickories and lindens and an under- 
growth of Indian currant. Other combina- 
tions which come to mind are masses of 
wild crabapples, with a few oaks extending 
above them : similar combinations with 
thornapples instead of crabapples, or there 
may be a grouping of thornapples and 
wild crabapples. Maple trees, elms, red- 
buds, flowering dogwoods, sassafras and 
all the native shrubs offer material with 
which most beautiful effects can be made. 
Often an undergrowth of vines or creep- 
ers, hepatica, bloodroots, violets, golden- 
rod, asters and other perennials • will en- 
hance the beauty of the entire combination 
of foliage and flowers. The dead stalks 
of goldenrod and asters are beautiful even 
in winter and the undergrowth of shrubs 
and other plants will hold the leaves which 
drop in the fall and which should be al- 
lowed to remain permanently for the pro- 
tection of the ground and a source of 
nourishment for other plants. Where a 
cemeter_y is very hilly it may be advisable 
to introduce quite large lots which will in- 
clude steep surfaces. A very beautiful lot 
might be developed with the steep borders 
covered with the native plants which de- 
light us when we visit the woods. Some 
of these plants have been mentioned, but 
others will readily occur to you, such as 
our native evergreens, pines, hemlocks, red 
cedars and junipers, and in the East and 
South, rhododendrons, mountain laurels 
and hollies. Juneberries, red-berried elder- 
berries and winterberries should be remem- 
bered. Each one will readily recall the 
various plants that would be adapted to his 
locality. It is just as reasonable for a man 
to give, say, $10,000 for a lot upon which 
can be grown beautiful specimens of trees 
and shrubs and beautiful groups develop- 
ing an attractive landscape as it is for him 
to put this amount of money into a stone 
monument. A great deal can be done on 
a lot 100 feet square and there is no reason 
why a family lot should not be even larger. 
Second : Areas along the inside of the 
boundary fence. In such areas a ground 
covering made of shrubs or evergreens 
with branches resting on the ground would 
make not only a permanent, beautiful and 
economical cover for the ground, but by 
their upward growth, with a minimum 
height of five or six feet, would give a 
grateful feeling of quietness and seclusion. 
In such a border the effect is best when 
considerable areas are covered with one 
kind of tree or shrub. There may be com- 
binations of two or three shrubs or of 
shrubs and trees that are satisfactory, but 
a general mixture made up of many species 
is apt to have a spotted and confusing ef- 
fect. Here again the leaves which drop 
from trees or shrubs may be allowed to re- 
main permanently and so gradually add to 
the soil. It is sometimes thought that by 
raking the leaves all out from among the 
stems an appearance of greater neatness is 
secured, but the dry leaves really look bet- 
ter than bare ground. They should re- 
main if the appearance alone were consid- 
ered, but when their plant food value is 
also thought Of and when we realize that 
the protecting leaves may insure a growth 
of early spring flowers, there is additional 
reason for keeping them. 
Third : Areas at the corners and angles 
of large lots. The treatment that has been 
recommended for the boundaries of ceme- 
teries is also applicable to the areas just 
named. A mass of shrubs or a combina- 
tion of trees and shrubs makes not only 
the best possible ground cover, but fur- 
nishes as well a background for a monu- 
ment or a background for the lot itself, 
even though there be no monument. 
Against such a background a mass of flow- 
ers, say, paeonies or iris, will extend the 
ground cover and furnish a pleasing bit of 
color. In place of paeonies and iris one 
might have any suitable, hardy perennial, 
or might use low, creeping plants like the 
Wichuriana roses with their hybrids, the 
running strawberry bush, dewberries, the 
American yew, prostrate junipers, or anv 
low, attractive plant that can easily be kept 
within bounds. 
In order to have an attractive cemetery 
it is necessary to have open spaces, some 
large and some small, but in between these 
spaces, framing them in or forming their 
boundaries, there should be foliage so ar- 
