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Forest cemetery

Create natural forests instead of rows of grey stones
  (+43, -1)(+43, -1)(+43, -1)
(+43, -1)
  [vote for,
against]

I was recently visiting a big cemetery and it gave me the creeps, they are just not nice places to visit your memories of dead friends and relatives.

A better environment could be created by forming a trust and raising money to purchase farmland by public subscription for plots. We are over producing food anyway so we wouldn't miss the agricultural production. The land would be the sort that is difficult to farm anyway, with a rolling hills, valleys, a river hopefully.

Instead of headstones, you have planted the tree of your choice, preferably broadleaf but whatever, with a memorial plaque for your last message if you really want one. The tree can be planted during your lifetime and you can be buried at the foot of it when absolutely necessary.

In the UK farmland is around £3,000 per acre and at 40'x40' to give the tree space to grow you would get roughly 25 trees to the acre, at a cost of £150 including the young tree. Sell the plots at £300 and invest the balance to cover the cost of management.

I am not suggesting the creation of a myriad manicured fenced off little areas but the development of a broadleaved forest managed for wildlife and open to all to enjoy, without the commercial forestry pressures to harvest and profit. I think I'd want a rope on mine for kids to swing on. I quite like the idea of being conveyed to my final resting place on the back of a black four wheel drive pickup.

IvanIdea, Mar 29 2002

(?) These people do it... http://www.armstron...18greenfunerals.htm
[mcscotland, Mar 29 2002, last modified Oct 21 2004]

(?) ...and its avaliable in England... http://www.manchest...02/jan02/burial.htm
[mcscotland, Mar 29 2002, last modified Oct 21 2004]

...etc. http://www.thegreen....uk/newsletter.html
[mcscotland, Mar 29 2002, last modified Oct 21 2004]

(?) Nice Garden http://www.exbury.co.uk/witchers.htm
Ghastly wondering what, if anything, may be buried there. [reensure, Mar 31 2002]

woodland cemetary http://www.shadowandlight.net/
well.. it's somehow the thing you're talking about, but I didn't do any research.. [sweet, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 21 2004]

(?) Human trees http://www.biopresence.jp/
This company incorporates human DNA into trees. [fridge duck, Jul 26 2005]

Index of Green Cemeteries in the US and Canada http://www.forestof...emeteries/index.htm
In the last five years, this really seems to have picked up. [jutta, Jan 27 2007]


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Annotation:







       //We are over producing food anyway so we wouldn't miss the agricultural production//
Ivan, how old are you?
thumbwax, Mar 29 2002
  

       Baked. There are already "green" burials where the body is buried in a bag or basic chipboard box, instead of a coffin, and a tree can be planted as memorial.
mcscotland, Mar 29 2002
  

       Did you read that link McScottie, or was it an automatic Sealy of Disapproval? That link leads to a page which specifically states that the end result planned is a meadow with copses of trees, which is not a forest. The idea here is not about planting things as memorials which is not new, it is about generating funds which can be used to acquire hundreds of acres to regenerate a semblance of the forests which used to cover the country, to provide new protected areas of natural beauty as an amenity for all. It is not about creating a garden of remembrance but something on a much bigger scale. Find me a link that suggests that, not some poxy bunch of silver birch in a field.   

       Thumbwax, are you asking my age because you are curious as to my proximity to the grave or are you disagreeing that we produce too much food?
IvanIdea, Mar 29 2002
  

       I think a forest where each tree represents (and marks the spot of) a dead person is far creepier than a graveyard.   

       It would also make a great place for murderers to bury their victims.
calum, Mar 29 2002
  

       Bury me with a bunch of apple seeds and a plaque that reads "Eat Me". Hehehehehe   

       Everyone would probably want Giant Redwoods.
phoenix, Mar 29 2002
  

       I'll admit its a little Sealy-esque to post three links. But I don't see how a matter of scale means something is not baked. Oh, and have a read around the thegreenburialcompany link - the pages include such phases as "...the oak trees planted on each grave are allowed to establish and the area evolve into natural woodland..." and "...being in an area designated for agricultural and 'countryside use only' legal covenants will ensure that the burial plots and ground are protected in perpetuity and accessible for visitors for generations to come..."
mcscotland, Mar 29 2002
  

       phoe... a bit of overcompensation there, hm.   

       I-I, I'm going to give you a plus for this one (+). I don't care about the raising funds bit, or the forest aspect, or whether or not it's baked, even. I am quite taken with the imagery here. The idea of being memoriali(s)zed with a tree is wonderful. If it is baked, then thank you for bringing it to my attention. I love this.   

       I think a red maple would be appropriate at my gravesite.
waugsqueke, Mar 29 2002
  

       Eh, only if you're thinking Freudian. I was refering to the lifespan of the tree (and therefore the grave thereunder) you dirty old man.
phoenix, Mar 29 2002
  

       "Don't sit under the apple tree with anyBODY else but me, but me."

croissant

[I'm surprised that nobody has yet done word play with arboretum, mausoleum, and mortuary, or some such. You know, something like "arbortuary" or "arboretary."]
quarterbaker, Mar 29 2002
  

       waugs, he may be your phoe, but I consider him a friend.   

       I also love the image. A forest would be so much better than a field full of marble stumps.   

       For longevity, though, at least as it relates to years, you'd want a Bristlecone Pine. They usually grow in pretty rocky areas, so it might be a bit difficult to do the burial.
beauxeault, Mar 29 2002
  

       He's not my phoe unless he charges a phoe.
waugsqueke, Mar 29 2002
  

       phoe fi phoe fum,
I smell an arborleum.
phoenix, Mar 29 2002
  

       yeah, I like the thought of a forest....   

       //I'm surprised that nobody has yet done word play with arboretum, mausoleum, and mortuary, or some such. You know, something like "arbortuary" or "arboretary."//   

       The title of this should be   

       "The For Rest Forest" and if I owned the place, it would be "Forrest's For Rest Forest"   

       OK. My head hurts now.
runforrestrun, Mar 29 2002
  

       Go to Nepal, set up shop and call it:
'Forrest's Forever Rest Everest Forest', or
'Forrest's Everest Forever Rest Forest'
phoenix, Mar 29 2002
  

       Take no offen-c/s-e, I've seen far more farmland of various forms taken out for tract housing than I care to think about.
thumbwax, Mar 29 2002
  

       Or daisies...
NeverDie, Mar 29 2002
  

       This is an excellent idea! Bury me in a biodegradable coffin and plant the tree directly over my grave, and presto, in a few years my body's mass is living again, as the tree incorporates me into itself. It's the closest we'll probably get to reincarnation/resurrection, and it promotes the planting of more forests, which is always a good thing.   

       Certainly beats mouldering away in some dank coffin, anyway.
Jeremi, Mar 29 2002
  

       I'll take a Japanese Snowbell because they are so beautiful to look up through. Second choice: red horse chestnut.
bristolz, Mar 30 2002
  

       Would I be able to choose a variety of tree bred to be spooky and intimidating? The evil-looking tree in the recent "Sleepy Hollow" movie would suffice.
cpt kangarooski, Mar 30 2002
  

       Yeah, "That's not dew on the ground, son, this here ol' thicket is so rife with the restless spirits of the haunted dead that the grass wets its pants!" <evil laugh>
reensure, Mar 30 2002
  

       I recently heard that in the U.S. the mortuary lobby has, under the guise of groundwater protection, achieved the passage of laws that now forbid any kind of biodegradable coffin. Does anyone know if that's true? It's a real shame if it is.
beauxeault, Mar 30 2002
  

       Right. Because nothing else dies in or on the ground....
phoenix, Mar 31 2002
  

       I always wondered why we couldn't combine what are the two main areas of open ground left in most cities: cemetaries and golf courses.
Maestro, Mar 31 2002
  

       we did golf courses
po, Mar 31 2002
  

       have all conifers with twisty, trippy roots and a cornfield at one end - much less spooky
chud, Apr 04 2002
  

       I'd want a rubber tree, but I'm not sure how they'd take to Michigan conditions. Another problem: What happens when a tree's roots grow in such a way that they unearth the remains?
nick_n_uit, Apr 05 2002
  

       Problem with golfing in a burial ground is when you swing and (((((((wooooooiiiiinnnnggggg))))))) you hit a ball, but it ain't a golf ball.
thumbwax, Apr 05 2002
  

       baked, as I know, in Stockholm, Sweden.- [link]
sweet, Feb 25 2004
  

       a poppy field
IcarusByNight, Jul 25 2005
  

       Nice idea.
doctorremulac3, Jul 26 2005
  

       I like it. It sure would suck if your tree died.
Chickenbreadthe1st, Jul 27 2005
  

       Yeah. I guess planting an Elm is a bad idea.
bristolz, Jan 17 2006
  

       this always reminds me of runfy (runforest) :(
po, Jan 17 2006
  

       Beautiful.
Trickytracks, Dec 24 2006
  

       I just came across this idea, and of course it is baked, but...   

       I noticed that two of our bakers are now theoretically resident, having approved this idea wholeheartedly.   

       And it is a good idea, which is why it is baked, after all. I'd quite like to be buried in one myself. Well... mostly. I'd just like to share something with you all, but if you're squeamish please look away now.   

       You know the ancient blessing which goes "May all your ambitions come true, except one"? The idea being that you need something to strive towards. Well my final ambition is to have my skull turned into a paperweight, to rest my upper teeth fondly on a descendants desk. Which I'm confident won't be achieved until after my demise, anyway.   

       So I'd like the rest of my body interred below an oak sapling, if thats not too much trouble.
Loris, Jan 28 2007
  

       This reminds me of a cemetary I visited in Finland years back. Eerie and quiet, but what stood out from amongst the gravestones was an appletree with what can only be described as the juiciest, fullest apples I have ever seen grow in the wild.   

       No I didn't eat one.
shinobi, Jan 29 2007
  

       Fruit trees...that is funny and morbid at the same time.
macncheesy, Dec 11 2007
  

       does cannabis count as a tree
colonol sanders, Dec 11 2007
  

       I don't think so. Still, any plant could be used in place of a tree. Rappers would use cannabis instead of oak, for example. I would definitely like a Huorn or an Ent for my grave. If they aren't available, cherry blossoms would be nice. Rowan or yew, at the least.
Shadow Phoenix, Dec 12 2007
  

       <silly wordplay>If the graveyard were in two identical halves, it would be a symmetery.</sw>
bnip, Dec 14 2007
  

       If you put a pine box in a pine forest, is that cannabalism?
RayfordSteele, Dec 14 2007
  

       Only if the wood rots and is ingested by the trees around it. Which might not happen for a while, if the pine is strong.   

       To tell the truth to you guys/girls, I never considered a full-corpse burial at my funeral. I always envisioned a nice, dark coffin; a few explosives of varying power and one heck of a blast. Any remains that haven't been completely disintegrated would be left alone (there wouldn't be enough to bury). A tombstone/plaque in the bottom of the crater would finish off the funeral, and then my relatives would go off to read my will and steal my stuff.
Shadow Phoenix, Dec 15 2007
  

       A well-managed broadleaf forest would be the ideal habitat for truffles. Oh, wait...
MaxwellBuchanan, Dec 15 2007
  


 

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