Friends of Greenlawn Cemetery

If you visited our table at the Salem Arts Festival on Saturday, June 8th, 2019 and you were the lucky recipient of a tree seedling, then you’re in the right place.  This post contains important planting and care instructions for your baby Tuliptree (Liriodendron tulipifera) or Scarlet Oak (Quercus coccinea).

Shameless plug here for Greenlawn’s Tree Inventory Map but I promise it’s relevant – if you’d like to see what these seedlings have the potential to grow up to be, come by the cemetery to check out mature specimens of Tuliptree and Scarlet Oak.  Use the map to find each tree’s location within the cemetery.

Tree Planting & Care Guide

This information pertains to both species of trees given out at the festival.

The seedling you have received came from the Arbor Day Foundation and so their instructions for planting and care are what is recommended and linked to below.  Also, both tree species offered as seedlings are native to Massachusetts and other selected areas of New England and as such should fare well if planted locally.

Comprehensive Tree Planting & Care Guide – this link provides all the information you will need to know in order to plant your seedling and help it to grow strong and tall in the years to come; Arbor Day Foundation also provides video instruction on how to care for your seedling; feel free to click around and learn as there’s a ton of information here that will help you and your tree on your new journey together.

Bare root planting guide – the seedlings you received are what is known as “bare root trees” meaning that instead of being in soil with a root system balled up into a burlap sack or a container, the roots are free and simply dipped into a hydrating gel that keeps the roots moist until planting; the main planting & care guide provides all sorts of information for all three types of prepared seedlings/saplings but this link is specifically for the seedlings you received from us at the Salem Arts Festival.  If you are in need of an easily printable version of the planting guide for bare root trees, Arbor Day Foundation provides a downloadable PDF copy – they link to it at the top of their bare root planting guide page.

Tuliptree leaf in waning autumn colors with a bit of the parent tree’s bark in the right background; photo taken in late October 2013

Tuliptree (Liriodendron tulipifera)

Here’s some more information about Tuliptrees from the Arbor Day Foundation and a few other handy plant databases.

Arbor Day Foundation’s nursery listing for Tuliptree – this link provides some basic information about Tuliptrees.

Go Botany’s listing for Tuliptree – this website is actually a database project headed up by the Native Plant Trust (formerly known as the New England Wildflower Society) with support from the National Science Foundation; Go Botany’s main site is also an excellent resource for information on native and naturalized trees (and other plants) growing within the six New England states (MA, ME, NH, CT, RI, VT); plenty of photos with each species listing to oogle at and use to help identify unknown specimens.

Virginia Tech’s Dendrology Fact Sheet for Tuliptree – this is a direct link to the fact sheet for Tuliptree; the parent site offers a lot of useful information on trees with a fact sheet database for over 450 different tree species as well as a handy tree ID app for Android and iOS.

USDA’s PLANTS Database page on Tuliptree – this is the listing in the national database run by the US Dept. of Agriculture; each species listing page also provides downloadable fact sheets in PDF form for that species, as well as photos, conservation status, maps, and information on how it benefits local wildlife.

The rich autumnal coloring of the aptly named Scarlet Oak (Quercus coccinea); photo taken in late October 2013

Scarlet Oak (Quercus coccinea)

Here’s some more information about Scarlet Oaks from the Arbor Day Foundation and a few other handy plant databases.  Databases below are the same as ones mentioned above, only this time the links bring you directly to the Scarlet Oak listings (and not the listings for Tuliptrees).

Arbor Day Foundation’s nursery listing for Scarlet Oak – this link provides some basic information about Scarlet Oaks.

Go Botany’s listing for Scarlet Oak – here’s Go Botany’s database listing for Scarlet Oaks

Virginia Tech’s Dendrology Fact Sheet for Scarlet Oak – this is a direct link to VT’s fact sheet for Scarlet Oak.

USDA’s PLANTS Database page on Scarlet Oak – USDA’s database listing for Scarlet Oak.

Signage on a Paperbark Maple (Acer griseum) located next to the office building near Greenlawn Cemetery’s Orne St entrance

Oak-kay, we’ve got some tree-mendous news to share that yew just wood-n’t be-leaf!

Did you know that one of Greenlawn Cemetery’s coolest treasures are its trees?

That’s right.  This urban gem is home to hundreds of trees of all sorts of species, ranging from the common native and naturalized trees you can see just about everywhere locally to the non-native and exotic trees that originally hail from lands far beyond our shores.  A leisurely stroll around Sargent Pond will take you beneath the outstretched branches of the Korean Mountain-ash (Sorbus alnifolia), native to northern and eastern China, Japan, and the Korean peninsula.  Continue walking and just before you pass beneath another Korean Mountain-ash, you will encounter the Common Persimmon (Diospyros virginiana), a tree native to the eastern, mid-western, and southeastern US but whose native range stops just short of Massachusetts, reaching only into Connecticut.  Continue  walking around Greenlawn Cemetery and you will notice some Massachusetts natives like the Sugar Maple (Acer saccharum), Northern Red Oak (Quercus rubrum), Eastern White Pine (Pinus strobus), and the increasingly rare Northern White Cedar (Thuja occidentalis).  As you can imagine, the vast collection of species and specimens growing within the cemetery have already made Greenlawn an arboretum.

Now for the cool news – back in March, the City of Salem’s Cemetery Commission gave the green light for a collaboration between Salem State University, the City of Salem, and the Friends of Greenlawn to seek accreditation for Greenlawn Cemetery as a Level I arboretum through ArbNet‘s Arboretum Accreditation Program.  ArbNet is a global network of tree-focused folks that offers the only international accreditation program specifically focused on woody plants, ie., trees.  Any arboretum and public space with a substantial focus on these plants can apply for accreditation at a level that suits them.  There are are four levels in total, each recognizing arboretums at various stages of development and achievement.  Here in Massachusetts we have less than 15 arboretums of any level – it would be an honor to have Greenlawn listed among the few and to have the cemetery’s tree collection be recognized formally.  This recognition would also be helpful in obtaining grants and other funding for the continued restoration and preservation efforts within the cemetery.  It would also provide educational opportunities and a means for the community to become more involved.

If you would like to be involved in the arboretum collaboration, please use our contact form here to find out more information on how to get in contact with the Salem State University staff heading up this effort.