If you have already buried one or two relatives, you will learn a few basic rules for grave care over time, if you do not outsource it. A very important one is: rhododendrons grow worse than weeds, so don’t go to grandma’s final resting place! Dear horned violet. Or forget-me-nots, which are colourful, hardy and full of symbols. But all this takes work, especially when the hose doesn’t reach from the water connection to the corner of the cemetery where the relatives are buried. Some therefore decide against towing a watering can and for an unplanted grave, covered only with gravel, glass stones or artificial turf. Easy to care for, but as dead as its coffined occupant.
From a botanical point of view, cemeteries are among the most species-rich areas in the city. According to the Bochum botanist Corinne Buch, they are even a kind of ecological time capsule. Buch examined 138 cemeteries in the western Ruhr area and found that their vegetation survived world wars, industrialization and structural change so unscathed that they are overgrown as they were 150 years ago. A good third of the 2,000 plant species that exist in North Rhine-Westphalia occur in cemeteries; 60 of them are on the red list of endangered species. There is even a “mini heath landscape” at the Oberhausen-Sterkrade cemetery.
Washable stone squares are not only uncomfortable, but also species-unfriendly. Even the phrase “The green lawn covers him” turns out to be too monocultural. Ideally, it should read: “Crocuses, snowdrops, Balkan anemones and single-flowered spring stars cover it.” Just, please, no rhododendrons.
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