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Top: "Cemeteries are solemn places, and we certainly don't want to damage headstones," Ferguson says. "We take pride in our work every day, but we certainly take pride in our donated services to the cemetery at a little bit higher level." Bottom: Davey volunteers bring bucket trucks to Riverside Cemetery to safely access the tree canopies onsite. P atricia Carmody feared continuing drought conditions and a lack of water for irrigation would yield a wilting burial ground filled with dead trees and weeds at Riverside Cemetery in Denver, one of two cemeteries she works to preserve for Fairmount Heritage Foundation in Colorado. Years of worsening drought, coupled with the cemetery's loss of water rights for irrigation in 2003, prompted the slow death of more than 100 non-native, mature trees in the 77-acre cemetery. Denver's oldest operating cemetery started reverting to its naturally dry, drab prairie landscape after spending decades looking like a lush, green oasis. The landscape found new life in 2009 through what Carmody calls "cemetery serendipity." Each year PLANET, the Professional Landcare Network, organizes a national day of service on the days around Earth Day. The day of service encourages green industry associations and businesses across the U.S. to spend a day volunteering in their communities. Andy Ferguson, South Central operations manager and member and past president of the Colorado Arborists and Lawn Care Professionals (CALCP), fully supported the idea of preserving the cemetery's remaining trees and reviving the landscape to a native state. Davey, CALCP and other volunteers started in 2009 by developing test plots for various native grasses. Volunteers loosened the soil and applied native grass seed and fertilizer. The cemetery does have some trees that are drought-resistant and as much as 100 years old. Davey has helped prune hardier trees, such as burr oaks and Kentucky coffee trees, so the cemetery could retain some historic trees. "A lot of the work we do out there is slow and careful work," Ferguson says. "Cemeteries are solemn places, and we certainly don't want to damage headstones. We take pride in our work every day, but we certainly take pride in our donated services to the cemetery at a little bit higher level." Thanks to CALCP, Riverside has benefitted from a mix of new landscape bed installations, reseeding of native prairie grasses, tree removal and pruning and now modest irrigation capabilities. But there's still more to do. Carmody hopes to establish a master landscape plan for the restoration and preservation of the cemetery's entire 77 acres using six years of data collection. Carmody says the cemetery would have virtually no landscape without the volunteer efforts of her "gardening angels." "It's like a miracle story, it really is," she says. "I am forever indebted, and the difference it's made in Riverside's future and what it means to our families is beyond my words." Ferguson says he's been pleasantly surprised by the number of volunteers each year. "At the end of the day, the complete loss of water rights for irrigation is not a situation that's likely to be repeated in a lot of places, but drought is something that is becoming more and more prevalent," he says. "Planning is what has made us so successful, without a doubt." 'Gardening Angels' Bring Landscape Back to Life Volunteers help revitalize the landscape at Denver's Riverside Cemetery. 14 | January/February 2015