What You Need to Know to Best Tend to the Graveyard
photo c/o Chris Mai
It is a great blessing to have so many members involved in the upkeep of our graveyard. Thank you to all who have expressed the interest and desire to help maintain and clean up this sacred space.
YARD BAGS TAKEN CURBSIDE TO ELIZABETH ST.
NO PRUNING WITHOUT APPROVAL
NO BLEACH
Beautify the Yard Day gatherings are hosted the third weekend of each month in 2020. Sign up for Beautify the Yard Days here. You are invited to join the group to help beautify and maintain the churchyard on those Saturday mornings or Sunday afternoons, but you are welcome to weed or rake leaves in the graveyard any day of the week. We have a large graveyard with many deciduous trees, so there are always leaves to rake, paths to weed, and a side yard to mow. Feel free to bring a rake and some leaf bags (or stop by the church office to be directed to equipment), but note that leaf bags need to be brought curbside around to the sidewalk along the wall on Elizabeth Street.
The Graveyard Task Force has asked that any pruning be cleared by Jennie Harding or Sue Henderson.
Flowering trees and shrubs should only be pruned immediately after blooms fall.
Camellias should rarely be pruned.
Hydrangeas, Cassia, tea olive, boxwood and azaleas can be pruned, but care should be taken not to remove blooms that are “set”. The rule of thumb for hydrangeas: they may be cut from April to August.
Also, please be mindful not to use bleach if cleaning headstones. We recommend D/2 Biological Solution, a cleaner that will not harm the stones nor the plants nearby--though some of the lichens and mosses can kill surrounding grass and plants as they die off the stone. D/2 cleans the stone from the outside in and will continue cleaning for up to a year.
D/2 can be used on all wood, stone, masonry, metal, vinyl, and roofing surfaces to safely resolve the problem of staining and soiling, which contribute significantly to the degradation and disfiguring of structures. D/2 is what is used to clean the Statue of Liberty and Arlington Cemetery!
There is a “No Scrub/No Rinse Method” and an “Immediate Results Method” for D/2 which can be employed as need be. Details can be found here.