SECOND YEAR FIRST SIX MONTHSW. W. Glover Cemetery, Dallas, Texas Participant in the Constellation of Living Memorials

January - June 30, 2025

A week before the start of the CLM beginning day, January 1, 2024 the following plants were confirmed present. Some we saw traces of and assumed those dormant for the winter would be appearing in the spring. 

Coral Berry Vine, Snail Seed  (Coralbells Cocculus carolinus)

Dewberry

Fall Aster – White and Purple

Frogfruit

Horse Herb a/k/a  Straggler daisy (Calytocarpus vialis generic name)

Lantana – Native multi-color

Liriope near center south of gate entrance,  ground spreads by bulbs 

Texas cupgrass Eriochloa sericea singular long seed slender stemhead

Tickseet Coreopsis – Yellow (Coreopsis lanceolata lanceleaf tickseed)

White Cemetery Heritage Iris

Wild petunia Ruellia humilis 

Not positively identified:

Possibly Slim Tridens or Purpletop Tridens, both good grasses

Not so good plants we saw:

Bermuda grass, narrow stem 3-5 awns that spread out on top of slender stem

Florida paspalum, solitary stems with seeds alternating around stem

Johnson grass

King Ranch Bluestem (KRB) 

Chinese Privet

All of these certainly continue to return in the spring along with others, including milk weed vine and a few Big Blue Stem plants.  Frog Fruit is especially prolific, even covering the old asphalt parking lot outside the cemetery gate.  And then there is the KRB that relentlessly covers three-fourths of the cemetery.

Spring of 2024 we transplanted a variety of native plants purchased at a nursery. We carried many gallons of water from our homes throughout the growing period with very poor results.  As of the end of June 2025, we have remaining four Turks Caps, a Red Yucca, and four Pink Muhly Grasses.  The transplants from other sources fared better: Engelmann Daises, Inland Sea Oats, American Beauty Berry, Texas Blazing Star. The Inland Sea Oats had been left in pots and dried out.  We had little hope for them, but there they are bearing seeds!

Last summer we mowed and covered two areas growing KRB with black plastic.  Our understanding is that nothing lives through the summer while baking with no light.  During the fall we removed the plastic. Vegetation was killed in both places.  Near the gate we saw that some areas were sunken and wondered if there are unseen graves. Here we raked and sowed seeds that were labeled native Texas, but this spring the plants are identified as some of those introduced from Europe.  In the other area fire ants had made a fine nesting place, but eventually we made a cedar log border, covered the area within the border with wood chips and put in some of the transplants that are still living at the end of June 2025.

Later last summer after observing the sun and shade pattern, we covered a larger place with black plastic to prepare it for a prairie seed mix.  Although the existing mixed grass still had some life when the plastic was removed, we decided to sow the seeds.  This year looks like nothing is changed because the grass was not thoroughly baked, roots and all. And we see no new grasses today.

During winter months, three volunteers worked about twice a month pulling privet, checking and cleaning tombstones.  While checking tombstones we noticed that dirt had washed over several stones that are secured flat on the ground. Fall Asters had grown into the dirt and covered a stone. This is one way tombstones can be lost from sight.  

This spring the same three Musketeers worked with one mowing around tombstones and two removing unwanted plants (mostly Dallisgrass and privet) from around the natives and stones.  The work done is obvious now with the oldest most fragile tombstones beautifully surrounded by delicate blooming plantains.   

An estimate for the hours worked in the cemetery January through June is 230 hours, not including drive time.

At a couple of events when children came to visit they were supplied milk weed seeds to throw out in the cemetery at the location of their choosing.  Happy to report that we now have several milk weeds growing.  At our Pioneer Picnic in April, a father, son, and a little girl attending staked a spot, and planted seeds that have now flowered. 

An item welcomed by birds and squirrels is a water feature that consists of a fiberglass bowl (fashioned to look like a rock). It is filled when we visit or during rain.  We found cracked pecan shells nearby and hope our squirrel visitor brings its squirrel friends.