When you visit Mount Auburn this summer you may notice some palms and other tropical plants popping up in the landscape.  While they may be unusual for this climate, they’re not the first time Mount Auburn has showcased exotic flora.

In the spring of 2022 our horticulture and landscape team took on the challenge to elevate our annual planting strategy to incorporate a wider diversity of plants that have a greater horticultural interest as well as adding additional containerized plantings.  Our horticulture team planted a variety of plants ranging from palms to bromeliads to a monkey puzzle tree and many more! The ongoing care during the year will be completed by our world class horticultural team and some plants will be overwintered in our greenhouse and replanted next year.

The plantings are Victorian inspired and in historic photos of Mount Auburn you can see palms were a favorite plant to enhance the landscape.  Victorians loved exotic plants that evoked faraway lands.  Tropical plants were highly fashionable in both botanical gardens and in homes.

These photos from Spring 2022 show some of the newest planting beds with tropical plants, and the historic images show a gardener with a palm (1881), a bed of cacti near the front fence (circa 1920-1939) and palms outside Story Chapel (1898).