What are our gardeners up to this month? March 2021

With the coldest weather of winter hopefully behind us, our gardeners across Europe are getting ready for spring. This includes preparing hundreds of kilometres of borders for the year ahead.

For the next few months they will be busy weeding, straightening edges and cultivating the soil, as seen here in Saint Charles de Percy War Cemetery, in France.

Thanks to colder temperatures in February, grass had not been growing as fast in this part of the world, allowing our teams to focus more on these tasks.

Over the border in Belgium our horticultural team are busy undertaking similar work, as seen below in Spoilbank Cemetery. Alongside preparing the ground, our gardeners use this time to replace plants which have not survived the winter.

Another important seasonal task for this time of year is cleaning away the natural green growth that accumulates every year on the stonework.

It’s natural for headstones to look like this in early spring and much of this growth quickly fades as the temperatures rise.

However, our teams inspect each site carefully and clean the stone whenever it’s dirty. In Belgium we are phasing out our use of chemical cleaning products in favour of a more environmentally friendly alternative made using enzymes that help break down algae.

Spring cultivation is also taking place across our Mediterranean area including the team at Lala Baba Cemetery in Gallipoli, Turkey, replenishing cemetery borders.

The grave markers in Turkey are pedestals and the space between them is small and its challenging to keep the planting in good condition.

The turf here is lush green but by Anzac Day on 25th April daytime temperatures will have soared and the grass will have started to brown off and go into its summer dormancy.

Elsewhere, larger horticulture work has also been taking place. In Tunisia our gardeners have recently completed turf renovation at Medjez-El-Bab and Enfidaville War Cemeteries, pictured below.

This large-scale renovation is occasionally needed when the levels of the soil make maintenance really difficult and in Tunisia there is a small window when this work is possible before the temperatures begin to rise.