Recap: I clear out overgrown graves in my local cemetery.
Link: Four more headstones rescued from Mother Nature’s clutches
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I’ve gotten many people asking me about what tools I use, what cleaning chemicals they should use, etc… I am addressing that in particular.
This is actually information that I have posted before, but I wanted to compile it into an album dedicated to gravestone safety. The other one was just in an album about my graveyard adventures.
Link: Hanging out in an old graveyard
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Now all of this info is in a post dedicated to gravestone safety!
I worked for the horticulture department at Texas State University for an entire year. My job centered around garden maintenance. I relocated saplings, lightly washed off decorative stones, and helped maintain rose vines that curled around a gazebo on campus.
I am trained in garden maintenance and “garden restoration,” as I call it. I am 100% confident in my ability to get the soil off of an overgrown headstone. I can also gently wash off the fresh dirt/mud.
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BUT:
I DO NOT CLEAN THE HEADSTONES, BECAUSE I LACK TRAINING.
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Headstone restoration is a matter of historical preservation, and needs a trained and educated person. That goes beyond my ability. I don’t ever go into the graveyard with the intent to clean the headstone. I just restore the garden around it.
This is all I’m doing in the graveyard. I restore gardens, not gravestones!
You might **think** it looks better when it’s scrubbed down, but it’s been made weaker – which ruins its historical preservation.
HOLD UP!! HOLD UP!! HOLD UP!!
Keep in mind that this is an overly simplified version of biology.
Because the lichen are munching on the stone, they basically have their little fungal/algae teeth sunk into it.
Try to imagine putting a piece of steak in your mouth and clenching down on it. When someone tries to pry the steak from your teeth, it tears. This is what will happen if you try to brush lichen off of a stone.
You won’t SEE the damage, but it’s there, and it will weaken the stone (which is not good for historical preservation).
You can read more about lichen here!
Link: https://lisbdnet.com/how-does-lichen-break-down-rock/
Think of it like this:
Your unprotected smart phone falls onto the floor. It cracks. The more it falls onto the ground, the bigger those cracks will grow, and pieces of the screen might come off entirely.
An old and heavy gravestone isn’t going to sit upright until it’s re-welded onto it. The more you try to prop it up, the more it will fall down, and like a smartphone, any other cracks and damage it has sustained are going to get bigger.
I know you mean well, and it’s awesome that you want to put some loving care into something old and exposed to the elements.
But cleaning a gravestone is a historical preservation procedure. Most city graveyard committees will have volunteer opportunities where you can get real training in handling a delicate headstone.
But until then, the best thing you can do for an old gravestone is to do NOTHING to the stone! But weeding around it isn’t going to hurt it. As long as you DON’T TOUCH THE STONE!!
Don’t let this discourage you, though. You can have an awesome time cleaning headstones as soon as you get permission and real training in it!
Happy graveyard exploration! 🙂