Your last minute Memorial Day grounds checklist

Patrick Lewis,
Grounds Manager,
Sunset Memorial Park

Memorial Day visitors are just around the corner. Although the official holiday is eighteen days away, we all know that families will start visiting our cemeteries and memorial parks much sooner than that. I’m sure your grounds crew has been hard at work for weeks in preparation of the busiest weekend of the year. But what details have they saved for the last minute?

Here’s what’s on our list at Sunset Memorial Park for the next two weeks:

• Trimming and mowing: We usually stop mowing on the Wednesday before the holiday weekend, but we have to keep an eye on the weather. More rain means more mowing.
• Raising markers: Did you have a hard winter? Are your grounds wet? We’ve identified and raised many markers and repaired areas of the park that have been impacted by severe and wet weather. In the next two weeks, we’ll continue this process.
• Flower regulations: Be sure you have clear flower regulations and share them in a caring way with your visitors. Information about clean up after the holiday is vital. Remember to use a warm tone when you share your regulations. While you certainly need rules, you need to make sure your visitors feel welcomed.
• Post-holiday priorities: We’re already thinking about the work planned for after the holiday weekend. We’ve partnered with our cemetery sales staff, who will greet visitors all weekend. They’ll get us a list of vases that need attention, refinish requests and markers that need to be raised.

Could your grounds superintendent use a checklist like this? Use the forward email icon below (it looks like an envelope with an arrow) to forward this post to your grounds crew.
 
This article originally appeared in Modern Memorialization, Trigard Memorials' weekly electronic newsletter featuring information for the funeral industry. Sign up for your free subscription at http://www.trigard.com/thursdays.

Add value by resetting memorials

Patrick Lewis,
Grounds Manager,
Sunset Memorial Park

Spring is here and with that comes a lot of clean-up work from the winter weather in our memorial park. One of our biggest jobs in the spring is to raise the ground memorials that have sunk over the winter.

The ground breathes, rising and falling. During the winter, especially with extreme weather, the swelling and compressing of the ground can cause memorials - even on granite - to sink.

Our grounds crew carefully raises the memorials without damaging the bronze or granite. We use a marker raiser - a slow moving machine much like a scissor lift with forks. We have to make sure not to hit the granite or bronze when raising and lowering the fork prongs, because they can compromise the clear coat or cause damage. Once the memorial is moved, we dig out the vase well, prepare the space and reset the memorial.

Ideally, the top of the granite is level with the ground. This helps avoid damaging the memorial during mowing and trimming while keeping the ground level.

Next time you are walking around your cemetery grounds, make sure to keep an eye on the memorials affected by the winter weather. By taking the extra time to reset memorials, you are providing value to the families you serve and keeping their loved one's memorial in good condition as a special place to share memories.

This article originally appeared in Modern Memorialization, Trigard Memorials' weekly electronic newsletter featuring information for the funeral industry. Sign up for your free subscription at http://www.trigard.com/thursdays.