| CURRENT DESIGN | PROPOSED DESIGNS |
The image shows Harvard Yard during a typical warm school day.
The reasons for this design [made by the landscape firm, Olmsted Brothers, sons of Frederick Law Olmsted] are best explained by Michael Van Valkenburgh [noted landscape architect and professor] and Peter Del Tredici [botanist and author], in describing the virtues of such an area in Restoring the Harvard Yard Landscape, published in the magazine Arnolida, Spring 1994 edition, pp. 3-11:
Simplicity and understatement are the prevailing qualities of Harvard Yard’s landscape, the result of an aesthetic that might also be termed frugal elegance. Yet it is the landscape—a simple order composed of a continuous ground plane of grass crossed with paths—that has retained the more enduring, timeless character. Overhead a high canopy of deciduous trees completes this majestic landscape. Combined, the lawn and the canopy unify the spaces of the Yard to engender a truly unique sense of place. [emphasis mine]
Of all the towns in Wake County, Morrisville lost the highest percentage of tree canopy between 2010 and 2020 [by far], having lost 22.7% of its trees. The veterans memorial provides the Morrisville Council with the opportunity to demonstrate to citizens that it realizes and understands the gravity of this huge tree loss, that it intends to do something about it when land is available to do so, and has as a core principal the intention of beautifying the town.
To the end of creating a "truly unique sense of place" for Morrisville's memorial, we respectfully propose a design that conforms to the simple and elegant goal of the National Garden Clubs using the award-winning principles that govern the environment of Harvard Yard. The idea of a non-heat-island and stormwater-absorbing memorial meets the pressing need for using available land in an environmentally-sensitive manner. Also, a memorial of this sort can be built – beautifully – with freely-shared ideas from the local community, and with our physical assistance.
The Morrisville Veterans Memorial will also (1) be constructed to serve its intended purpose. It's intended purpose was elegantly stated by former Foundation member Jerry Allen — a place for quiet and reverent reflection on the service and sacrifice of veterans, and (2) it will conform to the elegantly stated goal of the National Garden Clubs, Inc. to honor servicemembers returning from World War II battlefields by helping to beautify and preserve the country these men and women had fought for, rather than building stone monuments in their honor.
To those who would say it's not possible to build a memorial without spending a ton of money, we respectfully invite your attention to the Cary Tree Archive. The Archive is an eight-acre, homeowner association-owned site surrounding a 2,000-foot stretch of the Town's White Oak Greenway. The site is between 25 and 30 times larger in area than the Morrisville Veterans Memorial site. Over 1,100 members of the community have participated at least one day in building the Archive [including Morrisville mayor TJ Cawley and Council members Donna Fender, Liz Johnson, and Anne Robotti].
They have built a one-acre native pollinator garden, which was awarded the B.W. Wells Stewardship Award by the NC Native Plant Society. They have built a one-acre Food Forest, designed by a NC State scientist, containing native fruit-bearing trees such as pecans, paw paws, and persimmons. Groups including cub scouts, girl scouts, boy scouts, the Cary Woman's Club, Leaf & Limb volunteers, and a visiting group of teens from Guatemala have collaborated on building a re-creation of a Longleaf pine savanna. The site has been planted with about 350 native trees, including direct descendants of notable trees such as the 9/11 Memorial Swamp oaks, the Oklahoma City Bombing Survivor Tree, the oldest Bald cypress in the world(2), the Angel Oak, the Wye Oak(2), and the Davie poplar. Two corporations [Innatrix, Inc., and Sterling Pharma USA] have each built rock gardens, using local rock and planted with locally-sourced (and discounted) native plants. Employees from several corporations generously volunteer for several hours one day a month to maintain the Archive. The entire cost of the Archive has been less than $30,000 to date.
A small number of Archive volunteers.
Morrisville can build a memorial centerpiece that is "living," in line with the sentiment of the National Garden Clubs. It would be inexpensive and environmentally sensitive. And beautiful!
Images above show rockeries, or more simply, rock gardens – large rocks placed randomly in a pile with topsoil mixed in with them. When the desired height and width/circumference of the pile is achieved, native perennial pollinators are planted among the rocks. There are many local gardeners who could design such a structure, and several small local nurseries that would supply the plants [almost certainly at a deep discount].
The rockery would be placed at the highest elevation of the site and become its central feature. It could be approximately 15 to 20 feet in diameter within an irregular circumference and perhaps three to six feet high. I know of one locally-designed garden whose plan specifies native plants that bloom at successive times almost year round. This garden offers a different look month to month. Local experts [most notably, members of the North Carolina Native Plant Society] would enjoy designing the memorial planting to yield maximum beauty and benefit to native pollinators.
Within the rockery could be placed the seals of the six branches of the United States armed forces. Flagpoles could be erected on which to fly the American flag and the POW/MIA on one and the Town of Morrisville flag on the other.
Around the rockery would be set comfortable, inexpensive benches – each facing the rockery – perhaps such as these made of recycled rubber and which cost $495 each:
Half a dozen more of these relatively inexpensive benches could be placed throughout the site, each bench being connected to the rockery by a gently curving path wide enough to accommodate a wheelchair, and each facing toward the rockery. The paths would begin at the parking lot, at a point on the greenway, and a point from the Town Hall Drive sidewalk. These additional benches would provide places where those who come to the memorial for its intended purpose could sit in comfort, in cool, shaded places, and without disturbing or being disturbed by other persons nearby who are there for the same reason. NOT bunched together in rows of expensive and uncomfortable benches off a central path.
The state flower of North Carolina is the flowering dogwood (Cornus florida), a tree native to North Carolina and much of the East Coast. Its maximum height is about 33 feet. Its flowers are white. When flowering dogwood is an understory in a wooded area, its flowers stand out in springtime among other trees leafing out in green, and make a beautiful scene. The berries, which develop from the flowers, are a deep red. They are a rich food source for birds.
The overstory would consist of native noble hardwood trees. There would be a mix of species – this to avoid possible tragedy if a pest or disease were to attack a planted monoculture [elms hemlocks, and chestnut trees, for examples].
The Morrisville Veterans Memorial Foundation has been in operation for 10 years. In that time, it has raised a total of about $67,000 – more than half of which has come from a single donor. It seems highly unlikely that the Foundation will be able to raise anywhere near the amount needed to build the memorial as currently designed.
We respectfully offer this alternative plan for consideration. Funding for it would be much easier to raise, and only about 10% of the cost of the existing design would be needed. A local non-profit that is devoted to planting trees has had tremendous success in raising corporate donations, has received grants in support of its environmental mission from a major bank, a major insurancer company, a national tree-planting foundation, a local arborist company, a national drug company, a local genetic startup, a YouTube channel owner, and several religious and ethnic societies.