March 29, 2024

Parks board discusses state of city cemeteries

The care at the two city-managed cemeteries was discussed during the Newton Parks Board meeting on Wednesday. Public Works Director Keith Laube explained to the board the maintenance plan currently in place and potential plans for future work to combat prevalent issues.

In recent weeks, the board said they had been hearing from citizens about dandelions and other maintenance issues at the cemeteries. Laube said the dandelions have always been in the cemetery but because of the size and detail put into caring for the cemeteries, especially the 55 acre Union Cemetery, it cannot all be addressed in one day.

“At Memorial Park, we can mow all of that in one day and so it is all uniform. At Union Cemetery, we mow that every week, we weed whack every week,” Laube said. “I think what happened, we had our mowing schedule and some parts were mowed on Friday and some are mowed on Monday. Then over the weekend people go out there and that just happened when all of the dandelions shot up and then Monday we start chopping down the dandelions again.”

Board member Amanda Price asked Laube if there was any effect to the cemeteries because they do not have a full-time person overseeing them. He said no, it is not an issue of staffing and that they were actually putting more people in the cemeteries than in years past.

Another solution brought up for the weeds is to spray them with chemicals. Laube said to his knowledge, the cemeteries have not been sprayed except for some spot spraying in certain blocks.

“We tried a little bit of spot spraying last fall, a couple of the blocks, I’m not sure how effective it was,” Laube said. “Typically, spraying you do in the fall after the first frost and before the leaves drop, that is when you are going to get the most out of your chemical. This time of year, you are just going to make it wilt for a couple of days and they will be back.”

Laube said they do spray the other city parks in the fall. It is an easier task than it would be at the cemeteries due to the wide open spaces where booms can reach out and spray more area.

“You don’t have a lot of window of opportunity to spray because of the conditions needed and we have a lot of spraying to do,” Laube said. “The cemetery is a little tougher because there are certain rows between the grave markers that you can run a sprayer but the rest is going to hand spraying because we don’t want to get the spray on brass plates and name plates, so it is a little different.”

The issue of flower weeds is not new to the cemeteries. Laube said during this time of year the dandelions are the most common and that Creeping Charlie has also started to take over a lot of places in the last year. In the coming months, the dandelion season will end and white clover will begin to appear throughout the land.

Laube said he and his staff will look at procedures in place to see if any changes need to be made to better serve the parks system, including the cemeteries.

“We will look at it, as a staff, how we want to move forward whether it be with spraying or what we want to do,” Laube said.

Contact Jamee A. Pierson at 641-792-3121 ext. 6534 or jpierson@newtondailynews.com