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SIERRA VISTA — This is no ordinary green thumb project.
The Sierra Vista Garden Club has an ambitious goal of transforming the Southern Arizona Veterans’ Cemetery with drought-tolerant plants and trees — not only to improve the look, but honor veterans.
The club wants to keep the state-run 147-acre burial ground as a place of dignity and honor, said Terri Nuti, the cemetery administrator.
 The Sierra Vista Area Gardners Club works at the Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Sierra Vista. The members are, from left, club president Janet Brady, Helen Resop, Jim Woodruff, Ellie Grillo, Joan Wakefield, Carl Hobe and Carol Sulzbach. (By Mark Levy-Herald/Review |
“Everybody is very enthusiastic about this,” said Janet Brady, club president. “This has sort of become my baby.”
Nuti said the cemetery is so grateful to the garden club, because it frees up the small staff to concentrate on it’s main task: “honorably bury our veterans.”
Trees for the cemetery will include sweet acacia, weeping wattle, western red bud, Mexican and Texas ebony, blue palo verde and Chinese pistache.
Some plants include autumn sage and globe mallow — which add color but won’t be eaten by wildlife.
The club wants to spruce up the entrance and exit, too.
Joan Wakefield, a master gardener, is working on the existing design of the cemetery and said the club wants it to feature native-born plants, trees and grass.
Other goals are:
Of course, numerous club members working on fixing up the cemetery have personal connections.
Carl Hobe, a member who signed up to serve during the Vietnam era, said too often service members are overlooked, and improving the cemetery is one way to recognize their efforts.
Brady’s daughter, Sonya Lewis, is a chief warrant officer 4 who is stationed in Iraq. Wakefield’s husband, Randy, is a Navy veteran.
On another level, “it’s also good to educate people on what grows here,” Wakefield said.
As a landscape designer, Wakefield said she has seen the many mistakes people make when they don’t know what the best plants are for this area.
Donations are paying for the project, which club members hope they can finish in eight months to a year. Afterward, it will just be a matter of maintenance.
For now, they’re concentrating on the office building and the columbarium.
Last fall, Nuti started calling around to see if there was anything that could be done to help the cemetery’s look. With a staff of just five, keeping up with landscaping can be a challenge, Nuti added.
She talked to club member Jim Woodruff, who in turn went to the club, which decided in January to make it a project.
One thing the club definitely needs help with physical labor, such as digging.
herald/review Lifestyle Editor Karen Weil can be reached at 515-4620 or by e-mail at karen.weil@svherald.com.
Tony P wrote on Nov 25, 2008 12:24 AM: