GUEST POST BY Daniel Holcombe,Grounds Conservation
Manager, Historic Congressional Cemetery
About a month ago we started a new program here at the
Congressional Cemetery. Volunteers are stepping forward to “adopt” family
plots by gardening and maintaining the plantings throughout the year. Our
new adopt-a-plot project will both restore part of Congressional’s historic
landscape as well as enhance the overall beauty of the grounds. The
Cemetery was once called “gardenesque” by George Watterson, the third Librarian
of Congress. He described the Cemetery as a place that “the stranger as
well as the citizen would feel a melancholy pleasure.” This project is
designed to replace some of the lost horticultural beauty of the Cemetery.
Volunteers will choose a family plot to maintain throughout
the year, and with only a few exceptions, all family plots that use stone
coping around their perimeters are up for adoption. You are free to work
whenever you would like and we will have tools, water, and mulch available for
you. We have a list available of suggested plants, including those historically
appropriate as well as plants aimed at providing for our bees.
We have already had more than a dozen plots adopted, and a
few have already been gardened. The plots range in size from about ten
square feet up to around five hundred. Some are shaded, some are full
sun; and our only rules are no vines, vegetables, invasives, or trees. If
you think you’d be interested in helping us with this project, please contact
me at dholcombe@congressionalcemetery.org and feel free to look around for a
plot you might want to adopt!
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