Horticultural
Display Gardens

Stunning annual, perennial, and container shrub combinations of supreme beauty create various horticultural showpieces – from the main entrances and memorials to the stately mausoleum urns and building surrounds found throughout the Arboretum.

Chapel
of Peace
Gardens

The Chapel of Peace garden was designed by Landscape Architects Stacey Hayes-Nash and Karen Steenhoudt, and features a formal English-garden aesthetic with modern plant selections that provide beautiful foliage and floral displays throughout the season. The Chapel of Peace gardens also include flowering planters, a new patio with handmade wooden benches, and a large custom iron trellis with a climbing rose. The plantings and architectural features are designed to match the gothic architecture of our historic chapel.

Nature’s
Sanctuary

Nature’s Sanctuary is Laurel Hill West’s first green burial area, which functions both as a natural burial site and as a managed successional native plant meadow. Carefully selected native perennials, shrubs, and trees provide seasonal interest to visitors and countless benefits to native pollinators and other wildlife. Nature’s Sanctuary is a SITES GOLD Landscape, the only cemetery landscape in the world to be awarded this honor.

Old Mortality
Rock Garden

The first thing you see when entering through the main gates of Laurel Hill East is the historic Old Mortality statue assemblage. This rock garden was created on the steep hillside beside the statues, featuring rare and interesting specimens of bulbs, ephemerals, and perennials that thrive on rocky slopes. The garden utilizes native Wissahickon schist as well as reclaimed architectural elements from the cemetery.