At St. Charles Memorial Gardens, winter can be difficult on the lake and its residents. The swans are one of our concerns. We do feed them regularly to keep their energy up. When we get very cold temperatures and the lake totally freezes we then need to catch our swans and house them in swan shelter until warmer days arrive. We prefer not to catch the swans because of the stress on the birds. It is a delicate balance, but as long as we have open water we would most definitely prefer to leave them out.

We also are preparing our fountains to be set in place and put into service. We have multiple fountains in the cemetery and around the funeral home. We do shut them down in the winter due to freeze thaw conditions. The lake fountain is a year round fountain and does not get shut down unless we have a complete freeze.

Believe it or not, during this time of year we are already looking forward to our spring and summer flower selections that will be placed in beds throughout the grounds. These flowers are usually selected and ordered from the green houses in January. Our tulips were all planted last fall and our biggest challenge with our tulips is keeping the deer out of them. In early spring after unusually harsh winters the sprouting tulips can be a salad for our deer. We use a natural deterrent that smells like grapes to keep our fury friends out of our tulips. We do have a heart though, we will from time to time drop feed corn near their bedding areas to satisfy their hunger and keep them out of our beds.

Early spring is a great time for us to plant trees and shrubs so that they can slowly begin to come out of dormancy as the days warm up. We consistently replace trees and shrubs every year in our cemetery. End of winter early spring is a great opportunity to get that accomplished.

Because some winters and springs are wet, we have graves that need to be repaired with extra dirt due to the settling of dirt and air pockets that come out in the wet ground. We have teams that focus on these repairs daily. Our goal is to have them repaired before a family or visitor reports them. We do all we can to be proactive for the families whose loved ones are here with us.

Call (636) 940-1000 for more information

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