Business Profiles

Deeply Rooted

Long considered a sacred place for honoring the deceased, Laurel Hill also attracts guests who cherish the vast “living collection” of horticultural treasures.

by Bill Donahue

People tend to associate cemeteries with death and loss, but Laurel Hill aims to help visitors “appreciate the beauty of the living world in a place built to honor the dead.” Since its founding in 1836, Laurel Hill has curated the landscape with an ever-growing collection of trees, shrubs, and display gardens abloom with annuals and perennials.

Laurel Hill’s two campuses—Laurel Hill East in Philadelphia’s Paradise neighborhood, and Laurel Hill West in Bala Cynwyd—include 6,000 specimen trees and shrubs, representing more than 700 unique species and cultivars, including several state-champion trees. Laurel Hill’s gardens, groves, and meadows are integral to the cemeteries’ identity, according to President Nancy A. Goldenberg.

“Horticulture is at the root of Laurel Hill, an intended pun,” Goldenberg says. “John Jay Smith, our founder, knew quite a lot about horticulture. He laid out the cemetery grounds, and he understood even then what today we might refer to as ‘Nature Rx’—that spending time in nature is good for our overall health and wellbeing. He located the cemetery on the bluffs overlooking the Schuylkill River so people could get away from the industrialization of the city and enjoy the fresh air and natural beauty.”

The joy, peace, and profundity that comes from spending time outdoors is what attracted Aaron Greenberg to a career in horticulture. Today, as Laurel Hill’s arboretum manager, Greenberg oversees every aspect of horticulture on the 265-acre landscape.

“It’s a ton of work, because every layer of living plant life has its own workload,” he says. “We start with the soil, and we now have an area where we recycle all the soil, making our own compost and mulch. We think about the soil with everything we do. We’re also cutting the grass five to six days a week, intensively managing the herbaceous garden areas, and managing the gardens on the individual burial plots. We’re also an accredited arboretum, so the curation, labeling, and mapping—that’s all part of the job as well.”

Managing a vast “living collection” certainly has its share of challenges, including those imposed by climate change. While the collection has been thoughtfully tended—to provide habitat for native species, for example—the arboretum staff also has to contend with some surprises.

“Over the last 150 years, a lot of people have planted shrubs around their individual burial lots, either with or without permission, so we have to maintain those, too,” says Greenberg. “We manage those lots in a specific way.”

Goldenberg suggests visitors play a vital role in maintaining Laurel Hill’s living collection.

“We have people who walk their dogs in the cemetery every day, and they care about the cemeteries,” she says. “They will come to us and say, ‘There’s a branch down’ or something else has happened; they’re very protective, almost like it’s their backyard. We have 265 acres, so it’s comforting to know we have all these eyes and ears. It’s what makes Laurel Hill so cherished.”

Laurel Hill has earned the distinction of being a Level II-accredited arboretum, which means, among other things, it has a minimum number of 100 species, varieties, or cultivars of trees or woody plants; one or more arboretum employees who have job responsibilities that specifically include management or operation of the arboretum; and enhanced horticulture-specific educational and public programming.